| Cloggie: afp: alt.fan.pratchett |
| L-space: the best online source for information about Pratchett and afp. |
Terry Pratchett is without doubt the single most succesfull British fantasy author currently writing, and some estimates have stated that one percent of all books sold in the UK had his name on the cover! His best known series is of course the Discworld series, 25 of which have now been published. With the popularity of Pratchett, it's no wonder that he has a newsgroup dedicated to him and his books: that newsgroup is alt.fan.pratchett, or afp for short. The group was established in 1992 and has evolved into being as much a social newsgroup as it is a newsgroup about Pratchett's various books and other works.
In this afp is not unique: many newsgroups have grown from being strictly about a particular subject to a social gathering of likemided people. What is fairly unique are all the extra activities afp has spawned, like the irc servers, L-space, the various afpmeets etc.
A AFP meet is more or less the same as hanging out with your friends, having a drink or two, or three or four, or... Lots of talking about everything, some geeking and lots of bad puns. Usually there's a report of what happened at the meet posted to the newsgroup, quite often with a list of quotes ripped badly out of context, so watch what you're saying...
To find out where the next meet will be in the Benelux, you can subscribe to the Benelux-meets mailing list by sending an e-mail to benelux-meets-request@lspace.org with the word "subscribe" in the Subject: field. Submissions for the list should be sent to benelux-meets@lspace.org.
In the meantime, you could always do worse then to look at my reports of meets long past and not so long past:
| Eindhoven 8.0 | March 18th 2000 |
| Den Haag 2.0 | April 15th 2000 |
| Oxford GQ Minimeet | May 6th 2000 |
| The Leiden Meet That Wasn't Announced | May 20th 2000 |
| The Amsterdam Bookstore Meet | June 24th 2000 |
| Meet Mike Meet | July 8th 2000 |
| CCDE 2000 | July 26th till July 31th 2000 |
| The Penny from Heaven Meet | October 7th 2000 |
| Naomi's going away party | October 14th 2000 |
Like most "social" newsgroups afp has developed its own culture. One of those things that make afp fun are the afprelationships. Those are just like real relationships, only between afpers. Below is a list of my afprelationships.