05 Pratchett newsgroup peculiarities (Terry Pratchett Newsgroups)
Description
This article is from the Pratchett Newsgroups FAQ, by Orin Thomas orin@lspace.org with numerous contributions by others.
05 Pratchett newsgroup peculiarities (Terry Pratchett Newsgroups)
Being a rather unique bunch of people we also have some guidelines
that are more or less being used on alt.fan/books.pratchett.
--- THE USE OF [R] and [I].
"In theory they are forums for those who appreciate the books, but
exchanges segue into something completely different with extreme
rapidity. On alt.fan.pratchett they generally head in the direction
of the topics of food, traffic roundabouts, drink and, for some reason,
pubic wigs."
- Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs. DW Companion.
[R] is for Relevant.
[I] is for Irrelevant.
Anything about Terry Pratchett, His Books, His Characters,
the Computer Games, and items Pratchettesque should be labeled
[R]. Anything else should be labeled [I]. Given the high volume of
posting to AFP it would be appreciated if you could please modify the
subject line as often as you can.
Be aware that some [R] threads can turn [I] very quickly. Make sure
you don't cross post an [I] thread to the group alt.books.pratchett
as this will make people very cross. Discipline via Orang-Utan is
possible.
--- WHAT IS A SPOILER AND WHEN SHOULD I USE ONE?
A spoiler is essentially a warning about information contained in
a book. For example saying that Nobby lead the revolt in
Uberwald Nights, or that Rincewind ran away too quickly on
his wedding night in "The Missing Chapter" would require a
spoiler if these texts existed.
Originally we asked that you didn't post information to the group
about new books not yet available in paperback. Though you should
be especially careful about the newer books you might wish to take
care in revealing information about older books as well. Many people
new to the group will not have read each and every DW book so keep
this in mind when discussing them and warn people appropriately.
Terry obviously doesn't have to worry about this. It is rare that
he *starts* a thread - and if he answers a spoiler article it is
really up to the person who first put the spoiler in to duly warn.
Perhaps the best way to warn for spoilers is to take the
alt.books.pratchett approach of putting the first line of
your post as
Spoilers: Jingo, MAA
and then leaving a few lines of spoiler space. Perhaps even putting
in something like:
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
--- Posting to Alt.Fan.Pratchett.Annouce
The Moderated Newsgroup devoted to the important posts that might be
missed in the clutter of alt.fan.pratchett.
If you have something important to announce to alt.fan.pratchett then
mailto:afpa-mod@lspace.org
Please note, the submission criterion are not particularly strict. If
you email the moderator with something (an annotation perhaps) that
has already been covered by one of the FAQs or files then you will
be politely pointed towards the aformentioned source (without
any embarrassment). If you think that it is important and that the
whole newsgroup should know then post it. A.f.p.a is not just for FAQs!
--- More FAQs than you can poke a stick at
There are a lot of FAQs around the pratchett newsgroups. I don't think
anyone knows exactly how many there are now. alt.fan.pratchett.announce
seems to carry all of them so browse there if you have a question. Perhaps
at some stage one of us will write an afplopedia which incorporates all
this knowledge. (though at present the lspace web does this quite nicely)
It would be novel if people read the FAQs so kindly point any newbies
at this document if they seem a little clueless.
A good place to find these is:
<http://www.lspace.org/faqs/>
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