From: Leo Breebaart Subject: [FAQ] Welcome to the Pratchett newsgroups! Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett.announce,alt.fan.pratchett,alt.books.pratchett Summary: A very concise introduction to the Pratchett newsgroups on Usenet. Followup-To: poster Organization: L-Space Keywords: Pratchett Discworld FAQ alt.fan.pratchett alt.books.pratchett alt.fan.pratchett.announce Approved: afpa-mod@lspace.org X-Autoposter: This FAQ was autoposted by Archive-name: pratchett/mini-faq Posting-Frequency: weekly (every Monday) Last-modified: 11 Jul 2000 Previous maintainer: Leo Barium URL: Changes: + Now mentions the afp auto-welcomer. *** Welcome to the Pratchett newsgroups! *** Who is Terry Pratchett? ----------------------- Terry Pratchett is an author of humourous fantasy-based novels. In order to find out more, read the alt.fan.pratchett Frequently Asked Questions list (or FAQ). The FAQ is posted monthly, but is also available from the L-Space Web (see below). There are in fact several FAQs, covering a range of topics about these newsgroups and other Pratchett-related issues. What are the Pratchett newsgroups? ---------------------------------- There are three different newsgroups devoted to Terry Pratchett's work. - alt.fan.pratchett.announce (or afpa) is a moderated, low-volume newsgroup where announcements of general interest such as signings, meets, etc. are posted. You really should subscribe to it if you are interested in Terry's work at all. - alt.books.pratchett (or abp) is an unmoderated medium-volume newsgroup where all aspects of Terry's novels and other related, "Pratchett-relevant" issues are discussed. Subscribe to it if you are primarily interested in talking about the books themselves. - alt.fan.pratchett (or afp) is an unmoderated high-volume meeting place for the fans of Terry's books. The discussions often have nothing to do with Terry or his writing at all. Subscribe to it if you are interested in hanging out with a bunch of friendly people, who also happen to be Pratchett fans. The Pratchett newsgroups are mostly made up of friendly, well-natured people, who do their best to welcome new posters. However, it is a lot easier and more pleasant for yourself and the other posters if you spend some time reading other people's posts and the FAQs before first posting. First-time posters to afp can expect to receive an e-mail with basic newsgroup info from the afp Welcomer. This is a service run by the afp Clue Fairies, who you can also turn to if you have any further questions concerning the newsgroup. The Clue Fairies can be reached at . Please do not hesitate to contact them. What books has he written? What is the (chronological) order of the Discworld novels? ---------------------------------------------------------- In order to find out, read the Terry Pratchett Bibliography, posted monthly, but not currently available on the Web. Did you notice that in novel X ...? What is the 'N-word' in Soul Music? ----------------------------------- Terry Pratchett's work is chock-full of references, allusions, parodies and in-jokes. We have collected 1300 of such annotations in a huge document called the Annotated Pratchett File (or APF). This file, too, is available from the L-Space Web. Discussing annotations is a favourite pastime in these groups, but if you want to post something along those lines please check out the APF first, to make sure you are not wasting bandwidth on something we already know. Also, please use the tag "[A]" in your Subject to make sure the APF editor will get to see your article (See below). What do the [R], [I], etc. in the article subjects mean? -------------------------------------------------------- They are 'subject tags' that subdivide the newsgroup traffic in categories. People use the tags to automatically filter out or select articles, and thus keep the newsgroup manageable. A complete explanation of the subject tags can be found in the Tagging FAQ posted weekly to the groups, and available from the L-Space Web. A short summary: [A] Comments on references and annotations in the novels [R] Otherwise directly relevant to Terry or his work [I] Not related ("irrelevant") to Terry or his work [M] Discussion of 'meta'-issues relating to the newsgroups themselves [F] Fan activity [G] Discworld games [C] Content-free, "cascading" performance art posts [FAQ] Frequently Asked Question and other periodical documents [ABP] Cross-posted from, or to, alt.books.pratchett [ANNOUNCE] Cross-posted from alt.fan.pratchett.announce So where is this L-Space Web, then? ----------------------------------- The L-Space Web is a World Wide Web site located in Europe, with identical mirror sites all over the world. Besides the various FAQs and the APF, the L-Space Web also contain many other items of Pratchettian interest, including a quotes file with more than 600 quotes, a large section on the various Discworld games, different versions of the Hedgehog Song, and scanned images of most of the original covers of the novels. The L-Space Web can be found at: Um, what *is* a newsgroup? What does "http" mean? ------------------------------------------------- If you are new to Usenet and its terminology, you might want to read the general introductory articles found in the newsgroup news.announce.newusers. Doing so will make your life on the net much easier, and will probably save you from making those embarrassing silly beginner's mistakes that you'll regret in the future. If you think that right now you are reading an echo, a conference, or a bboard, I'd also strongly suggest a trip over to news.announce.newusers. (It is true that some of you may indeed be receiving this group as an web page, echo, conference, or what have you, but that just means somebody set up a gateway. Generally, it will be wise not to forget that most of the articles in these newsgroups originate (and end up!) on Usenet.) -- Leo Breebaart