Long known for its memorable memes (e.g., kiwi and wowow), the Farcaster (FC) community has also collectively hatched some fascinating terminology.
Ever since esteemed channel lead and GM Farcaster co-host Adrienne Shulman released her award-winning essay "The Power of Scenius: Farcaster and the Collective Genius of Communities" back in June, several word-nerd casters have taken up the task of tracking emergent Farcaster-specific lore and patterns of word use. Recently Adrienne and I teamed up for a project to chronicle the canonical Farcaster Scenius Lexicon memes and bring them onchain, and we're excited to share our early results as Zora Mints.
Our starter list as of December 2023:
- Conversational Liquidity Providers (CLPs)
- Before Farcaster/After Farcaster (BFC/AFC)
- Benevolent Dictator
You don't need to be building an app to help Farcaster succeed. You just need to engage earnestly and wear your CLP badge proudly.
https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x49c385714b65d6deaac285891867fe500a0f3e65/1"I still want Farcaster to succeed but I've decided running a hub isn't the best way.
I'm running with conversational liquidity provider instead." ~ @adrienne
"Conversational Liquidity Providers." ~ @ccarella (commenting on the top 30 active users as shown on Outcasters)
Search on Warpcast for conversational liquidity provider
"The conversational liquidity provider badge reminds us it's not just the developers adding value here.
"Someone has to keep this place engaging... the CLPs are the unsung heroes of Farcaster." ~ @adrienne
"CLPs contribute real value to the FC ecosystem." ~ @danicaswanson
"Incredible piece of terminology" ~ @maurelian
"conversational liquidity is a great meme, really makes you understand social networks as markets of creators and consumers" ~ @six
"When I grow up, my job description will be 'Conversation Liquidity Provider.'" ~ @vrypan
Farcaster changes you. If you plug into the Farcaster scenius and community in earnest, you may find your world shapeshifting into something more vibrant, connected, and creative.
https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x49c385714b65d6deaac285891867fe500a0f3e65/2"@monkeydlinks.eth coined the terms BFC/AFC during gmfarcaster [...] Scenius at work." ~ @adrienne
Search on Warpcast for BFC + AFC
Before Farcaster: launch products = cold start problem
After Farcaster: launch products = bootstrap from FC audience ~ @ghostlinkz.eth
Before Farcaster: no high value interaction on any social platform
After Farcaster: quality discourse on a variety of topics in person & shared articles. ~ @sal1y.eth
Before Farcaster: Offchain art
After Farcaster: Onchain art. Found Zora ~ @j-valeska
Before Farcaster: was a degenerate
After Farcaster: still a degenerate ~ @cassie
Wielding mighty warps, boosts, and algorithms, Farcaster's benevolent dictator faithfully acts in service to the permissionless, interoperable future.
https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x49c385714b65d6deaac285891867fe500a0f3e65/3If you were BDFOWF, what would you have us work on?
BDFOWF = benevolent dictator for one warpcast feature ~ @dwr
Note: benevolent dictator is, of course, not a Farcaster-specific term; it's widely used elsewhere. In FC contexts benevolent dictator typically refers to Dan Romero (@dwr), co-founder of Merkle Manufactory, but it's also used in more general ways, often as a web3 governance archetype.
Search on Warpcast for benevolent dictator
"@dwr.eth is Benevolent Dictator For Now of what shows up in Warpcast." ~ @horsefacts.eth
"He is a great benevolent dictator. At some point we'll have to help him to decentralize governance and culture :)" ~ @dhadrien.eth
"WHAT IS A BOOST" ~ @ted
"it's when dan flexes the benevolent dictator role" ~ @ivy
"...smaller accounts have lots of trouble getting engagement. If you were the benevolent dictator, how would you fix this?" ~ @nor
"Should we do an @unlonely stream called benevolent dictators?" ~ @markfishman
"The BDF!L (benevolent dictator but not for life) pattern is the single best idea in sociology of distributed systems but is really hard to pull off. When people are wary of BDFLing, they end up all waiting around for someone else to start. You must bind !L to a fixed epoch." ~ @vgr
What other FC-specific words or phrases should be considered for the FC Scenius Lexicon? (Thank you to @six for calling attention to "Romerogorithm," coined by @nonlinear).
Comment or tag us on Farcaster (@adrienne or @danicaswanson) to let us know!
Thanks for reading! New here and want more context? Start with @cameron's canonical and much-appreciated article "Fast Rope Into Farcaster."
Correction: Originally we stated that "romerogorithm" was coined while we were working on this article. Thanks to @ghostlinkz.eth for finding via Searchcaster that it was actually coined in Sep. 2022.
Warpcast rewards but based on conversational liquidity provider score not engagement score.
warpcast rewards but not requiring 1099 for crypto
would love but how
if I knew ā¦
@kbc someone is calling for your skills!
How does that work
Warpcast rewards tracking engagement on replies/all casts would be a start
Conversational liquidity provider? Tell us more
https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/the-farcaster-scenius-lexicon As it soundsā¦ on social networks, who are the people who are enabling conversations?
Today is the two-year anniversary of my Farcaster join date (Jan. 29, 2023). To celebrate, Iāll revisit something I wrote in 2024 about my experience here: āRight from the outset I knew I'd found my happy place. I settled in. I joined Paragraph. I bonded with other nerds. I learned the community lore. I made myself right at home in this cozy digital nest, grateful for the norms of kindness, the warm welcome given to my earnest word-nerd writing style, and the technical excellence on display every day.ā āI'm fortunate enough to be here at a pivotal time. Knowing how rare it is to stumble upon a thriving scenius just by following a trail led by my interests and curiosity, I don't take a single minute of it for granted.ā Farcaster is still the center of my digital + onchain life in 2025, and I wouldnāt have it any other way. Recently I started working on a new CLP ("conversational liquidity provider") project for FC. Too early to say more, but I'll happily accept wishes for good luck. š
Sending you all the good luck!
Thank you... and while I'm at it, thanks for being a great CLP. š Your work here is much appreciated!
Thank you so much! I like this new term.
100000 $goodluckwish š you're one of the people keeping me here
What a kind thing to say, @y0b. Thank you so much for that. š The appreciation is mutual.
best place on the internet
It really is! I'm "spoiled" now and won't accept anything less... lol.
Update on the open-source FC lore wiki idea: After talking it over with other casters and looking into the possibilities, I've decided not to forge ahead with the idea. I still think it's needed, and there's clearly lots of enthusiasm in the FC ecosystem for it, but I'm not the right person to spearhead it. However, since Iāve already written two pieces of FC loreā¦ - The Farcaster Scenius Lexicon (collab with @adrienne) - āClanker is a Gothā (a collection of clanker witticisms) ā¦and Iāve also got a loosely organized collection of terms for the Moxie Dictionary, Iād love to contribute some lore from my collection if someone else decides to take up the mantle, so keep me in mind. Thanks for all the suggestions in the previous thread. Much appreciated. cc @pjc @bradq @vrypan.eth @proxystudio.eth https://warpcast.com/danicaswanson/0x24c88c91
For reference, here are my two lore posts: https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/the-farcaster-scenius-lexicon https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/clanker-is-a-goth
Thanks for the update. Yeah, tough project to get going. Would be fun and useful but time consuming and tough to fund.
*nod* The Farconomy still has a long way to go if we're ever to have truly sustainable funding models for culture projects like this, and for community-service types of maintenance labor like channel moderation. That said, I'm 100% here for the experiments, so feel free to tag me in future discussions about lore projects. If the Farconomy ever does figure out sustainable funding, I'd love to serve as an editor.
Both are equally important, IMO. Can you read this blog? https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson/the-farcaster-scenius-lexicon Itās a piece @danicaswanson wrote about a project she and I collaborated on to document some of Farcasters growing lexicon, including the phrase conversational liquidity provider. If you can read it, I think you will very much enjoy it.
the whole tipping meta thing... is that what enables organic engagement and visibility on the Farcaster protocol? or is it just Warpcast? i confess, i don't understand how any of it works. i don't unerstand how it relates to "far score" and "openrank" and "boosting" and other farcaster social scores. and I don't know what the DEGEN and MOXIE and ENJOY ecosystems have to do with any of it. who can explain it all to me simply like i'm a 9th-grader?
Itās an economic layer of farcaster, that works outside of Warpcast. Degen = active tipping, the allocation amount is determined by a combination of locked degen (similar to staking) and open rank score Moxie = automatic gifting through engagement (like, comment, save, share), determined by a mix of open rank score, fan tokens purchased (value locked), and fan tokens locked (long term) As an artist & writer, I think theyāre both great boosts to the ecosystem. Most people just get caught up in the spam nature of tipping culture. Personally, I use my degen intentionally every 2-3 days to give a big tip to someone who adds value to my time on farcaster
thank you for outlining the ecosystems. in general, i have my doubts about the value and promise of memecoin tipping. i don't see a future where these economies are sustainable. but i'm watching and learning. what i'm also interested in understanding more about is the purpose and role of the social ranking in these economic layers. and separately whether Warpcast uses them in any way to inform their algorithms on the platform.
As an example, I made enough money with degen in a few months to pay 3-4 months of mortgage payments. regardless of where the meta goes, the short term value enabled me to prioritize time writing and making art, building generally, which then (I hope) provides value back to the ecosystem. So I think there will be hype bubbles and the long term sustainability is a consideration, but also that the short term value can be augmented into long term ecosystem value Hmm not sure re: open rank, my assumption is thereās a trained machine learning algorithm for feeds
Protocols and their tokens have long term value. Memecoins are dubious without some external valuable thing. Iām bullish on Moxie turning tipping into a protocol and bullish on Higher being an indie group of artists, athletes and creators doing cool shit without care of the token price. Iām not counting on either to make me rich but those are the two Iām studying.