Multiple databases vs a single database

Question

I\'m looking at an existing site and they are using separate databases. The databases seem to be setup in the following manner:

• general types (user_type, langu

Answer 1

If there were a good reason for breaking up a database into a bunch of smaller ones like this, the databases would probably have names like "hadronsupercolliderrawdata" and "googlebackup_2008". Names like "generaltypes" and "memberdata" suggest they were just overwhelmed by stupidity.