02 Jul 2005 at 17:30 - 8
Farming has many definitions depending on who is using the term.
If you continuously replay the same area, with no real goal other than to find items, this is farming. This form of farming has the approval of Anet, but no one really needs to do this too much. If you want to use the collectors, some of this is needed, but in general there's no real point to it. Experience nor gold is really that precious in the game, and easily obtained items are just about as good as the best you can possibly find. Your battles will be decided by your skills and planning rather than by the items your character has.
If you go after a particular boss, or monster to the exclussion of all others because the gain is better than others, this too is called farming. Anet usually responds to this by lowering the drop rate on the boss or monster that people percieve as being better than others.
Also, if you enter an area only to kill a single monster, or open a chest, and then map back to the town you exited from and continue to do this over and over for hours on end, this too can be called farming. Anet has code in place to make this form of farming lose all gains after a bit.