Pern Alliance back online
31-March-2007
The Pern Alliance
has been back online for about two weeks now. The Pern Alliance is a forum
to ask questions related to running or participating in Pern fan clubs and
includes a section for club ads. The forums are starting fresh since
no recent backup existed before the server crash, so all previous members
would need to sign up again to participate.
Massive server crash in Pern fandom
10-March-2007
At the beginning of February, a massive server crash took
out the websites of the two largest play-by-email clubs on the web, Arolos Weyr and Dark
Fort Weyr, as well as the Pern Alliance forum. According to Laura Walker
on WeyrPlug,
the sites are currently being restored from backups. Arolos
Weyr is back up and running, while Dark Fort currently can only be
reached through its email
list. The reinstallation of the Pern Alliance forums is being worked
on.
Pern Encyclopedia
17-November-2006
Master Elrhan's Pern Museum
& Archives has a new attraction! You can now use a site-specific
Google search on the pages. The museum features a unique Pern
Encyclopedia which includes Robin Wood's portraits of major characters
from the Dragonriders of Pern novels. Robin painted the pictures
for the People of Pern book as well as for the Dragonriders of
Pern boardgame based on Anne McCaffrey's descriptions.
Third Time's a Charm!
12-November-2006
Yet another Fandom
Wank, the third one this year and coming just days after the last
one... Courtesy of copyrightous Pernoholics at the Anne McCaffrey Fans
Forum, this wank is directed against a Pern-inspired RPG and features a
demonic troll watching out for Anne's supposedly violated copyrights. It's
no wonder that rumors about Anne McCaffrey suing her
fans are so widespread on the internet.
Update 13-Nov-2006: The issue has been put to rest by Anne
McCaffrey's Fan Database Coordinator posting a message that the attacked
RPG did nothing wrong and asking fans to show more tolerance to other fans
and to let them enjoy to play in whatever version of Anne's worlds they
wish to play in.
McCaffrey Quest Winners and Wall of Fame
12-November-2006
The winners
of the 2006 McCaffrey Quest have been announced. Congratulations to
winner Kath for a perfect score! Ambitious McCaffrey fans who missed the
official trivia event still have a chance to submit their entries to try
for a spot on the Wall of Fame until the end of November. The Quest
can be taken on the 2006
McCaffrey Quest site.
It's Wank-Time Again...
8-November-2006
Perndom does it again: Less than four months after the
last incident, the Anne McCaffrey Fans Forum is featured on Fandom
Wank again, this time over an episode of banning, host behavior and
new rule suggestions.
This is the third time within a year that Pern fans are being mocked for
fannish flamewars.
November Writing Challenge
2-November-2006
As if writing 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo
isn't enough of a challenge yet, Arolos
and Dark
Fort Weyrs are keeping their members busy with a writing challenge. For
every day in November, a new writing assignment will be posted on the Arolos
and Dark
Fort LiveJournal Communities. Even if you are not a member,
this project might provide plenty of interesting story ideas!
Ready, Set, NaNo GO!
31-October-2006
NaNoWriMo 2006 has officially started with the
NaNo Forums showing a November 1st date (GMT). Good
luck and lots of endurance and creative inspiration to all participants!
For more NaNo-related shared fun and collaborative procrastination, visit
the NaNo LiveJournal
Community or the AMCF
NaNo 2006 thread.
Top Ten Most Active Public Clubs on YahooGroups
19-October-2006
With online FanFiction and role-playing activities now
being permissible, more and more Pern-themed play-by-email (PBeM) clubs are
providing public archives. The YahooGroups directory contains at least 126
PBeM lists with public archives. Out of these, more than a third (44)
has suffered death by spam and 18 lists have never seen a single post. Out
of the remaining lists, 39 are showing posting activity over the last six
months. Who's most active? Looking at the posts per member (to account for
very active small clubs versus larger clubs) and overall post count for
the past three months with highest weight on October, here are the top ten
currently most active Pern-themed YahooGroups with public archives:
- Northern
Barrier Weyr - 17 members posting about 1 post per week
per member
- Windtoss Weyr
- 39 members on a recent spurt of activity after more than a year of
silence - nice to see a club revival in action
- Black Bay Weyr
- 24 members, posting on average 3 posts per month per member
- MoonSet Weyrling Group 50
- only 8 members, but certainly quite active!
- Opal Eyed
Wyverns Weyr - 31 members managing at least one post per month per
member
- United Weyrs: Telgar
Weyr - 13 members
- United Weyrs:
High Reaches Weyr - with 6 members the smallest group on the top
ten list
- Trade
Winds Weyr - 35 members
- Arolos Crafters - with
142 members undoubtedly the largest group on the top ten list
- United Weyrs: Fort
Weyr - 8 members
Excerpts and links to posts from these clubs can be found
in the Fan Works - YahooGroups section.
November is NaNoWriMo Month!
15-October-2006
Just a little over two weeks left to prepare for this
year's novel writing marathon: National
Novel Writing Month! As usual, the goal is to write 50,000 words
during the month of November in hopes of producing enough material to be
worked into a novel. Join the madness alongside Pern fans and other
wannabe novel authors. The Anne McCaffrey Fans Forum has a thread
dedicated to NaNoWriMo 2006, as well as the goal to accumulate 50,000
NaNo posts before the end of November.
Chronicles Forum the largest SciFi Forum on the 'net
15-October-2006
According to an article
on BBC News, the Chronicles
Network claims it has the largest Science Fiction and Fantasy forums on
the web. It also contains an Anne
McCaffrey section.
McCaffrey Quest 2006
5-October-2006
McCaffrey
Quest is an annual trivia challenge on all things McCaffrey organized
by Meeting of Minds webmaster Cheryl. Contest participants can choose from
a range of prizes, including autographed books and Pern T-shirts. The 2006
McCaffrey Quest will be held from 3-November-2006 until
6-November-2006. This year's theme is Crystal Singer and 9th
Pass Pern.
Anne McCaffrey trying to shut down FanFiction sites?
3-October-2006
There is a new article about FanFiction on the web that is
spreading confusion among Pern fans. The article "What
the fic?", published by the Lexington Herald-Leader, claims:
"Some authors, including Anne Rice and Anne McCaffrey, actively seek out fanfic Web sites and try to get them shut
down, ..."
Contrary to this statement, FanFiction websites based on
Anne McCaffrey's literature received their official blessing with the
posting of the new FanFiction
Rules on Anne's website in November 2004. Anne states:
"Fan Fiction, Fan Art, and online RPGs based on any of my literary works will now be permitted so long as it occurs on a non-commercial basis."
In the past, there have indeed been instances where fan
sites found themselves on the receiving end of a "cease and
desist" letter for illegally posting FanFiction or FanArt (e.g. look
at this article
about Anne McCaffrey's (now old) policies on FanWorks and the
following notice
about Pern copyright on Dee Dreslough's site). Sites like FanFiction.Net and
Elfwood would not even accept any submissions related to Pern because of these
issues.
However, the situation is much more relaxed nowadays and the way how fan
works are handled has changed. This has led to a reopening of the
possibilities of posting FanFiction and FanArt based on Anne's worlds
online. The new
McCaffrey section on FanFiction.Net keeps growing
and has 115 entries by now. Fans will be glad to hear that according to
the discussion at the Future of Fandom panel during Dragon*Con 2006, the new
Pern movie deal is unlikely to interfere with fandom's new-found
freedom.
Pern Alliance Forum upgraded to block spambots
24-September-2006
Another fan forum plagued by spam has taken action against
the bots. The Pern
Alliance Forum has been upgraded
today to include security checks against bots. PA
administrator Heather indicated that further action may be taken by
turning off guest postings.
Spam Blitz on MoM forces (temporary?) shut down of guest postings
14-August-2006
A Spam
Blitz on 11-August-2006 forced a shut-down of guest postings on the Meeting
of Minds Forum. In reaction to this, the forum software has been
upgraded. MoM
webmaster Cheryl says they are likely to reopen guest postings at some
point with new protections against spambots.
Pern Fandom Wank
10-July-2006
The latest spat between the Pernese
Friends Forum and Anne
McCaffrey Fans Forum achieved the dubious honor of being featured
on fandom_wank, a community dedicated to mocking fannish flamewars.
This is not the first time Pern fans are being picked on for wankiness.
Back in December 2005, the incident
between the AMCF hosts and technician already prompted similar
mockery.
New movie deal pits Pern fans against Steve Austin
10-June-2006
Steve Austin from Austin Leatherworks claims to hold a
valid license for Pern merchandise, which has in the past hindered movie
deals. About a year ago, the legal conflict regarding Pern merchandise
licensing for Austin Leatherworks escalated into a lawsuit
and a grievance
alert posted at the SFWA site. With the new movie deal in the works,
several fans have now apparently jumped on the bandwagon by sending emails
to Mr. Austin, "some rather nasty, one in particular came very close
to being considered threatening" (Lawsuit
Q&A). These events have prompted Mr. Austin to post a statement on
his site that "Threats will be taken seriously and passed along to
the proper authorities for investigation & prosecution." Given
the fact that he filed a lawsuit against Anne McCaffrey, we can assume
that he is not bluffing, so fans would be advised to tread carefully.
AMCF is back online
13-April-2006
The Anne
McCaffrey Fans Forum is back online after having switched to a new
server. As it turns out, the old host wasn't quite prepared for the CPU
usage strain that an active Pern-based fan board would place on their
server.
Happy April's Fools Day!
2-April-2006
Ever been frustrated about doing work for your club and
not getting paid for it? Or been turned down when you were sending in that
persona sheet for the perfect little goldrider? Well, Arolos has the
solution! The Arolos BoD has announced that they will be turning the
club into a commercial enterprise. For $150, you can secure your precious
persona a
guaranteed Impression to a gold dragon. If you have the big money to splurge, add $500
for the ability to hear all dragons. For the full details, see the Arolos'
Price List.
And of course, be aware that it was posted on April 1st. ;-)
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