alt.fan.eddings
A shameless quote from the alt.fan.eddings FAQ (actually, it's from an old FAQ, version 2.0, which is available in the FAQ Archive):
alt.fan.eddings - Home of Eddings fanatics worldwide. First appeared in the early 1990s, and if anyone knows the actual date it was created, let me know. (I know I started reading regularly in January, 1993, and it had already been around for a while then). A comfortable newsgroup with moderate traffic (usually around 20-30 messages a day, depending on the time of year, whether a new book has come out recently, and the level of spam on the Net) - feel free to drop in and join us.
alt.fan.eddings is the spiritual home of all Eddings fans. Discussions take place on all manner of subjects, most of which are related to the life and works (mostly works) of David Eddings. If your initial reaction is "What a bunch of geeks!" then stop reading now. If, however, you can appreciate that it might actually be a lot of fun, you're welcome to join us. We have a couple of dozen regular (or very regular) posters, together with quite a number who float around the edges of the group, and I assume we have a reasonable number of "lurkers". A lot of people take the name of a character in one of Eddings' series as an alias, and it's quite common for people to begin to almost take on the personality of their character.
Some sterling detective work (not to say archaeology) was carried out by Aquarius in response to recent discussion about the origin of the group. He posted the original "newgroup" message (the control message that created alt.fan.eddings), which was sent by Bob Snyder on behalf of Lydia Leong on 16 May 1992. The rationale for the group follows.
rec.arts.sf.written has experienced many discussions of David Eddings in the past. Many of these have been "holy wars" involving discussions of whether or not Eddings is a "good" writer; most fan questions have gotten lost in the flame wars and none of the existing rec.arts.sf.* groups have provided a good place to discuss Eddings' works.
In addition, it might be beneficial for players of the Belgariad MUSH to have a newsgroup where they can discuss issues and post articles on the current state of the role-playing game (much as alt.fan.pern mixes general Pern discussion with PernMUSH role-playing discussion).
This group will hopefully provide a place to discuss David Eddings' novels and the worlds he has created, without subjecting its readers to the volume of postings and the flamage on the rec.arts.sf.* groups.
There are a few regular features on the newsgroup. Doroon's Trivia Quiz is posted fortnightly. There are five questions covering both of Eddings' worlds, with the occasional miscellaneous or crossover question. Itagne maintains the Silver Suggestions, the official AFE guide to netiquette, and Teut maintains the Alias List, the definitive guide to which character aliases are currently in use. The FAQ is posted twice a month, and the Recommended Fantasy Author List is also posted regularly.
A recent and much-welcomed development on AFE is the tradition of Councils: occasions when AFE people meet up in real life. UK-wide meets are called "Eosian Councils", and I have a collection of photos from these marvellous events. :)
I maintain an archive of the newsgroup, and have now made it available by way of a web-based front-end. It's still in development, and will eventually be moved to be part of the Tol Honeth project.
I also run the AFE Daemons, including the birthdays daemon, Horja, and a request-by-mail service.
I issued a couple of booster messages for the newsgroup alt.fan.eddings.creative in late 1998, and that group has since been revived and is in frequent use for filks and fan fiction. I keep an archive of my own contributions to AFEC, largely for my own benefit, but you're welcome to read through it if you want.
Finally, AFE is always looking for new subscribers. If you think you can put up (or join in) with our little idiosyncrasies, we'd be glad to have you!
This Web page is created and maintained by Kamion.