This book tells a long story that started when I read Stallman's accounts of writing his first free software. In 2005 we were building on-line communities deliberately and aggressively, for political purposes. By then we'd codified the theory and were applying it over and over. In 2007 I used this to build a large community for the Wikidot.com platform, which I'd invested in and was CEO of. In 2009 I used it as the basis for the ZeroMQ community, and by 2011 had turned this fire on full, stripping away all the old clumsy patterns, and replacing them with upgraded state-of-the-art techniques.

We are still learning, making our processes simpler, and our tools sharper. C4 is not for everyone. It takes courage to embrace unknown contributors and trust them by default. It takes experience to realize that for every twenty smiles, there is one knife. We learn these lessons slowly. Even with a full handbook, it will take you years to understand. So practice, be prepared to fail often, and be happy. :)