Context Is King https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/ 2026-06-09T04:56:23+00:00 Context Is King https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/ https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wiki:dokuwiki.svg text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) author https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=author&rev=1752814293&do=diff F. Randall "Randy" Farmer <box red| TBD>Wow! I shifted voice all over here. Rewrite. This looks more like a biography or wikipedia entry. Maybe use it for that.</box> At the dawn of the personal computer age, I was a teenager. Even since then, when I was using telephone handsets to connect to remote computers to create and play games, I have always been fascinated by using these interconnected machines to facilitate communication between people. text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) competition https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=competition&rev=1752814293&do=diff Related Publications * Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities * Amy Jo Kim, 1997 * This was the canonical reference when it came out, and some of the lessons have aged well, but most need serious updating. For example, Social Networks didn’t exist at the time. I’ve discussed my project with Amy Jo, where I floated the idea that my book might be the logical ‘sequel’ to her original. She was delighted and offered for me to re-use any material (w… text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) contextisking https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=contextisking&rev=1752814293&do=diff <html><center><h1>Context is King: 30 Years of Lessons in Online Community Building<br><br> <i>The Wiki</i></h1></center></html> A forthcoming book By: F. Randall Farmer If you've come here, you must have heard that I'm working on a book about Online Community Building. This wiki is where I hope to work on the various sections and gather feedback. At this point I'm not at all sure exactly how the whole thing is going to fit together, but a survey of the text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) dontcrossthestreams https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=dontcrossthestreams&rev=1752814293&do=diff Lesson: Don't Cross The Streams <box 45em round green> “Whatever you do, don’t cross the streams!” “Why?” “It would be bad.” “... What do you mean, bad?” “Try to imagine ... every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) emptypage https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=emptypage&rev=1752814293&do=diff Template: Empty Page <box red| TBD>Page specific TBD notes go here.</box> text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) failures https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=failures&rev=1752814293&do=diff On November 8th, 2009 I participated in the closing panel at Hackers 25. <info> Spectacular Failures and What We Learned - Brad Templeton Step up to the mic and let us know what You learned. Participants: Randy Farmer, Karl Auerbach Mother hen: Chip Morningstar</info> text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) lessons https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=lessons&rev=1752814293&do=diff The Lessons TBD Background Context Error: CONTEXTNAME Action Taken Results text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) meweit https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=meweit&rev=1752814293&do=diff Community Types: Me, We, and It <box 45em round green> “I, we, and it. That's simple enough.” </box|– Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything> When enabling online communities, it is easy to become confused evaluating which tools and technologies to use when we should instead be considering social dynamics and structures. For the last five years or so, I’ve been using a taxonomy called text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) person https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=person&rev=1752814293&do=diff Person Tripartite Identity Pattern One of the most misunderstood patterns in social media design is that of user identity management. Product designers often confuse the many different roles required by various user identifiers. This confusion is compounded by using older online services, such as Yahoo!, eBay and America Online, as canonical references. The services established their identity models based on engineering-centric requirements long before we had a more subtle understanding of use… text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) proposal https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=proposal&rev=1752814293&do=diff The Book Proposal <box red| TBD>I've only pasted in some initial raw text. No edits yet.</box> Vital Statistics TITLE: Context is King SUBTITLE: Thirty Years of Lessons in Online Community Building AUTHOR: F. Randall Farmer PAGES: TBD PRICE: TBD WHY IS THIS BOOK NEEDED? text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) publicispublic https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=publicispublic&rev=1752814293&do=diff Lesson: Public is Public <box 35em round green> “Public means Public. This means visible to God, Google, and everybody.” </box|- The author, to dozens of product managers for many, many years.> Background <box red| TBD>Searching the internet archive, this apocryphal story appears to be at least partially untrue. As far back as text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) publishers https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=publishers&rev=1752814293&do=diff Possible Publishers * Yahoo! Press [O’Reilly] – Ability to publish the truth and some details. * O’Reilly * MIT Press * Summit Books * Simon & Schuster * Prentis Hall * Monolith Press * Addison Wesley * New Riders/Peachpit Press text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) sidebar https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=sidebar&rev=1752814293&do=diff Table of Contents Context Is King: The Wiki * The Proposal * Possible Publishers * The Contexts * Community Types: Me, We, and It * Me Contexts * Person * We Contexts * Group * It Contexts * Thing * Collection (of Things) * Global/Site * The Lessons * Don't Cross the Streams * Public is Public * Failures text/html 2025-07-18T04:51:33+00:00 Anonymous (anonymous@undisclosed.example.com) tbd https://thefarmers.org/ContextIsKing/doku.php?id=tbd&rev=1752814293&do=diff The following back-links to this page contain items that the author plans to resolve.