diff --git a/database/README.md b/database/README.md
index a00d1a065a..87b743b38e 100644
--- a/database/README.md
+++ b/database/README.md
@@ -18,6 +18,104 @@ Result
 -----------
 <img src="app/src/screen.png" height="534" width="300"/>
 
+
+Data Model
+-----------
+This quickstart demonstrates a simple data model for a social application.
+While this data model uses some of the Firebase best practices, it has some
+known tradeoffs made for simplicity that would not scale to very large numbers
+of users.
+
+The database has four "root" nodes:
+
+  * `users` - a list of `User` objects, keyed by user ID. So
+    `/users/<ID>/email` is the email address of the user with id=`<ID>`.
+  * `posts` - a list of `Post` objects, keyed by randomly generated push ID.
+    Each `Post` contains the `uid` and `author` properties to determine the
+    identity of the author without a JOIN-style query.
+    * Posts contain a `stars` property which is a `Map` of user IDs to boolean
+      values.  If `/posts/<POST-ID>/stars/<USER-ID>` is `true`, this means
+      the user with ID `<USER-ID>` has starred the post with ID `<POST-ID>`.
+      This data nesting makes it easy to tell if a specific user has already
+      starred a specific post, but would not scale to large numbers of stars
+      per post as it would make loading the Post data more expensive.
+  * `user-posts` - a list of lists of posts.  `/user-posts/<USER-ID>` is a list
+     of all posts made by a specific user, keyed by the same push ID used in
+     the `posts` tree. This makes it easy to query "all posts by a specific
+     user" without filtering through all Post objects.
+  * `post-comments` - comments on a particular posts, where
+    `/post-comments/<POST-ID>` is a list of all comments on post with id
+    `<POST-ID>`.  Each comment has a randomly generated push key. By keeping
+    this data in its own tree rather than nesting it under `posts`, we make it
+    possible to load a post without loading all comments while still
+    having a known path to access all comments for a particular post.
+
+Database Rules
+---------------
+Below are some samples rules that limit access and validate data:
+
+```javascript
+{
+    "rules": {
+      // User profiles are only readable/writable by the user who owns it
+	  "users": {
+        "$UID": {
+        	".read": "auth.uid == $UID",
+          ".write": "auth.uid == $UID"
+        }
+      },
+
+      // Posts can be read by anyone but only written by logged-in users.
+      "posts": {
+        ".read": true,
+        ".write": "auth.uid != null",
+
+        "$POSTID": {
+          // UID must matched logged in user and is fixed once set
+          "uid": {
+            ".validate": "(data.exists() && data.val() == newData.val()) || newData.val() == auth.uid"
+          },
+
+          // User can only update own stars
+          "stars": {
+          	"$UID": {
+           		".validate": "auth.uid == $UID"
+          	}
+        	  }
+        }
+      },
+
+      // User posts can be read by anyone but only written by the user that owns it,
+      // and with a matching UID
+      "user-posts": {
+        ".read": true,
+
+        "$UID": {
+          ".write": "auth.uid == $UID",
+          ".validate": "data.exists() || newData.child('uid').val() == auth.uid"
+        }
+      },
+
+
+      // Comments can be read by anyone but only written by a logged in user
+      "post-comments": {
+        ".read": true,
+        ".write": "auth.uid != null",
+
+        "$POSTID": {
+          "$COMMENTID": {
+            // UID must matched logged in user and is fixed once set
+          	"uid": {
+            	".validate": "(data.exists() && data.val() == newData.val()) || newData.val() == auth.uid"
+          	}
+          }
+        }
+      }
+    }
+}
+```
+
+
 Support
 -------