Joel on Software - Building Communities with Software
In a time when I could be preparing for the upcoming wedding, I chose to read this and I'm glad I did. It is one community owners look at why he made the (rather unconventional) design decisions he did.
His point is that:
Small software implementation details result in big differences in the way the community develops, behaves, and feels.
I got this link from an email subscription to Nancy White's Furl account. Not sure what to do about attribution.