As far as the internet being a reliable source, that just depends on where you look and what kind of information you need.

About message boards going downhill and such, my opinion has changed on that again. There are several boards that I very much enjoy visiting now, and surprisingly enough, one that I thought was beyond hope has now improved a good deal. Many of the old regulars have returned and there are less idiotic posts.

By idiotic, I mean topics like... "wut do u all see in this game???" and those who play a 40 hours RPG literally for 10 minutes and then complain about how boring it is compared to Chrono Trigger and FF7.