Alfandria
Alfandria is the name given to the community which formed around the Usenet newsgroup alt.fan.dragons. It is considered the origin of the draconic community. After the newsgroup, the members also founded a MUCK, an IRC channel, a livejournal community, and a hub website. Most of these spaces still operate today.
History
Creation of alt.fan.dragons
The alt.fan.dragons newsgroup was established on December 1st, 1993 by ExistingPhantom as a place to discuss dragons more generally. Phantom was "a starving dragon fan in a dragonless internet", and posted to Usenet asking if any others were interested in creating a group.[1] In the proposal for the creation of the group, its intended uses included discussing ideas about dragons and depictions of dragons in fiction, and sharing art and creative writing related to dragons. It was created under the alt.fan.* namespace, which represented fan communities.[2]
People who identified as dragons began to appear somewhere between September and November of 1994. Phantom names Blackburn as one of the first people to self-describe as such. He initially tried to stem the posts about dragon identity, because he was concerned it would put off other posters. Eventually, he stopped when he realized the group was more popular than ever before.[1]
the group was referred to as the Dominance for a while, but later someone came up with 'alfandria' and that name stuck[1]
Creation of other spaces
a muck (site still seems to be up?),[3] need to find more details about its creation and use. noted as running as lately as 2013[4]
irc channel on dalnet,[5] later on sorcerynet[6]
an ftp site[5]
and a livejournal community[7] (first post in 2001)[8]
the lj was used to organized in-person meetups in the mid 2000s[9][10][11]
(other places probably were too, but that's what i've got sources for so far)
Book project
inspired by the poetry and art posted to the group[12]
was to be called "soaring heart and soul: the stories and poems of dragons"[12]
significant progress was made
publishing, paying contributors and copyright registration was being discussed[12]
book was even going to be taken to a publisher's convention[12]
stated as being 'on hold' in 1999, seemingly related to the unauthorized republishing of contributors' works[13]
Culture
elder members were called fruits, newer members were called nuts
dragon code!
stuff abt the relationship between people who actually identified as dragons in ways we would consider otherkin-ish vs other people who were fans or roleplayers or whatever
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 ExistingPhantom. "The early history of AFD, as present by ExistingPhantom" (Archived version)
- ↑ ExistingPhantom. "Proposal / Request For Discussion - New Newsgroup ALT.FAN.DRAGONS" (Archived version)
- ↑ "alfandria.net"
- ↑ Arcturax. (July 7th, 2013) "Just another day in the Alfandria clearing"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Alt.Fan.Dragons Frequently Asked Questions" (Archived version)
- ↑ Lonita. (January 9th, 2003) "Notice"
- ↑ "Alfandria: Alt.Fan.Dragons LJ"
- ↑ Banrai. (August 3rd, 2001) "First post, welcome and all that..."
- ↑ Tal. (February 12th, 2006) "London, UK March Gather"
- ↑ ExistingPhantom. (December 23rd, 2005) "FC 2006 Dragon Gather"
- ↑ Tal. (June 7th, 2007) "UK August Gather poll!"
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Quelonzia. "AFD Publication Project Update" (Archived version)
- ↑ "Dragon Poetry and Story Book Project." (Archived version)