From: The L-Space Cabal <cabal@lspace.org>
Subject: [FAQ] The Lspace.org Domain
Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett,alt.fan.pratchett.announce,alt.books.pratchett
Summary: Information about the lspace.org domain and the services it provides
Followup-To: poster
Organization: L-Space
Keywords: Pratchett Discworld FAQ L-Space Cabal lspace.org
Approved: afpa-mod@lspace.org,ridcully@unseen.ankh.edu
X-Autoposter: This FAQ was autoposted by <leo@lspace.org>

Archive-name: pratchett/lspace-faq
Posting-Frequency: monthly (on the 7th)
Last-modified: 21 December 1999
URL: http://www.lspace.org/faqs/

Changes:  + Minor change in wording to question 8's answer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This FAQ consists of the following sections:

1.  What is lspace.org?
2.  What is the L-Space Cabal?
3.  Why do people keep telling me: "There Is No Cabal"?
4.  What services are available from lspace.org?
5.  Does the L-Space Cabal maintain all lspace.org services?
6.  Who are all these people with lspace.org e-mail addresses?
7.  So if I want an lspace.org address myself, I should just write a good
    Web page or volunteer to do something?
8.  Are people with lspace.org addresses all close friends? Do they have
    any special powers on a.f.p.? Does the Cabal?
9.  What do I do if I have a complaint about someone@lspace.org?
10. Should I be scared of approaching the L-Space Cabal? They have been
    around so long! They know so much! They are so wise! I've heard they
    flame people! I am such a newbie! Won't they flame *me*? Or laugh in my
    face?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------



        "Mass distorts space into polyfractal L-space, in which Everywhere
         is also Everywhere Else. All libraries are connected in L-space by
         the bookwormholes created by the strong space-time distortion in
         any large collection of books."

                 -- (Terry Pratchett, The Discworld Companion)
                    <http://www.lspace.org/lspace-info/whatis-lspace.html>



1.  What is lspace.org?
    -------------------

    Lspace.org is an Internet domain name. It was formally registered with
    the InterNIC in December 1995, and went on-line in January 1996.

    Registering an Internet domain allows the owners to assign arbitrary
    computer host names (such as www.lspace.org or irc.lspace.org) and
    e-mail addresses (such as cabal@lspace.org or afp-help@lspace.org)
    within that domain.

    The domain name lspace.org was chosen with Terry Pratchett's
    permission, but beyond that he has no further personal involvement with
    us. Nothing we do is in any way official or sanctioned.



2.  What is the L-Space Cabal?
    --------------------------

    Lspace.org is owned and administered by Robert Collier, Leo Breebaart,
    Mike Knell and Colm Buckley, collectively known as The L-Space Cabal.

    Despite the ".org" extension, lspace.org is *not* an actual
    organisation, legal entity, or, heaven forbid, commercial enterprise.
    The only money involved here is the money we spend to keep everything
    up and running.

    'L-Space' is just a convenient name for a virtual construct that
    consists of four friends running a domain and various services, because
    they think this is (a) great fun, and (b) quite useful.


    2a.  What do you mean, "fun"?
    ----------------------------

    All four of us are technically inclined people (the word "geeks" has
    been mentioned) with many years of computer, sysadmin, and Internet
    experience between us. Having your own domain to play around with is
    tremendous fun to a techie. It's as simple as that.


    2b.  What do you mean, "useful"?
    -------------------------------

    All four of us were active in on-line Terry Pratchett fandom long
    before lspace.org came into being. In fact, we met and became friends
    (first virtually, later in real life) through the Usenet newsgroup
    alt.fan.pratchett.

    Each of us had been involved in running and maintaining popular
    Pratchett-related resources such as web sites, FTP sites, mailing
    lists, moderated newsgroups, and Frequently Asked Questions documents.
    All these services were run from many different machines, using many
    different, occasionally changing, contact addresses.

    What we wanted to do with lspace.org was bring all our
    Pratchett-related resources under one Internet roof, making it easier
    for people to remember the addresses and host names and people
    involved.



3.  Why do people keep telling me: "There Is No Cabal"?
    ---------------------------------------------------

    Calling ourselves the L-Space Cabal was a tongue-in-cheek reference to
    the legendary Usenet Backbone Cabal: a supposedly elite group of
    powerful sysadmins, who were accused by various conspiracy theorists of
    secretly running Usenet.

    The Usenet Backbone Cabal *really* did not exist, and this was written
    down in a FAQ of the period as: "Usenet Rule #0: There is no Cabal".
    Over time, both concept and phrase became part of Usenet folklore.

    When the L-Space Cabal first revealed itself, experienced a.f.p.
    Usenetters were quick to pick up on the reference, and a ritual running
    gag was born that to this day has not died out: any mention of the
    Cabal *must* immediately be followed by the phrase "There Is No Cabal"
    ("TINC", for short), and much subsequent hilarity ensues, particularly
    if the ritual successfully manages to confuse the uninitiated.



4.  What services are available from lspace.org?
    --------------------------------------------

    The main entry point for everything we have to offer is our WWW site:
    The L-Space Web <http://www.lspace.org/>.

    Note that the web site L-Space Web is not the same thing as the domain
    lspace.org, despite the former's relative importance and high
    visibility, and despite a tendency for people (even ourselves,
    occasionally) to use the terms interchangeably.

    Other popular services we provide include the publicly accessible news
    server news.lspace.org (which holds the last 90 days of all the
    Pratchett newsgroups traffic), and the chat server irc.lspace.org.

    In future versions of this FAQ, this section will be expanded and
    become more complete and comprehensive. For now, just head on over to
    the L-Space Web, and start browsing if you want to know more.



5.  Does the L-Space Cabal maintain all lspace.org services?
    --------------------------------------------------------

    No. It started out that way, but over the years on-line Terry Pratchett
    fandom has expanded to include much more than just the resources
    created or maintained by the members of the Cabal. Many people from all
    over the world have spent time and effort trying to make new resources
    available, and/or help improve the quality of existing ones.

    The scope of lspace.org has also changed to reflect this growth. For
    example, the L-Space Web now includes many sections maintained by third
    parties (such as the Games pages, or the Discworld Convention pages),
    and there are a number of mailing lists and other 'special' e-mail
    addresses (such as afp-help@lspace.org or birthdays@lspace.org) we
    provide the hosting for.

    Also, both lspace.org and the L-Space Web profit immensely from a
    dedicated and ever-growing band of volunteers (typically, but not
    necessarily, with their roots in the alt.fan.pratchett newsgroup
    community) who help us keep everything going.



6.  Who are all these people with lspace.org e-mail addresses?
    ----------------------------------------------------------

    The L-Space Cabal are no longer the only ones with personal lspace.org
    e-mail addresses. The widespread and international lspace.org 'family'
    is growing slowly but steadily (with about 60 members at the moment of
    writing).

    Most of the people we offer an lspace.org address to can be found among
    the aforementioned volunteers active in on-line Pratchett fandom in
    general or lspace.org maintenance in particular.

    Inviting these people to join lspace.org is both a way to make it
    easier for their 'customers' to remember contact addresses, as well as
    a way for us to say "thank you" or "we really like what you are doing".



7.  So if I want an lspace.org address myself, I should just write a good
    Web page or volunteer to do something?
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------

    No, it's not that simple.

    To begin with, it should always be understood that the "do something
    worthwhile -- get an lspace.org address" guideline is just that: a
    guideline that the Cabal has chosen to kind-of-follow because it struck
    our fancy, rather than a cast-iron rule or contract the outside world
    can somehow demand that we abide by,

    For another thing, Terry Pratchett is a very popular author, and these
    days the world of on-line fandom is huge. If we offered an lspace.org
    address to everyone who maintained a popular web page or other service,
    the resulting explosion of the lspace.org namespace would cause us
    administrative and technical problems we simply do not have the time or
    inclination to tackle.

    Finally, we strongly dislike the idea of an lspace.org address being
    something that can be "bought" merely by following an appropriate
    sequence of steps. If you want to get involved in Pratchett on-line
    fandom, do it for the right reasons: because it's fun, because it's
    useful, and above all because you want to do it *for its own sake*.
    Anything after that is just icing on the cake. There are no guarantees.
    Explicitly asking us for an address is one of the surest ways of
    predisposing us against giving you one.

    All of the above may sound a little arbitrary -- tyrannical or elitist,
    even -- but we are putting this extra forcefully because it's something
    we do need people to understand very, very clearly. Lspace.org is *not*
    a public commodity run by the Cabal on the users' behalf. It is our own
    private sand box that we have *chosen* to run as a public commodity for
    the reasons outlined in question 2. And we reserve the right to make,
    break, change, or decline to have any rules.



8.  Are people with lspace.org addresses all close friends? Do they have
    any special powers on a.f.p.? Does the Cabal?
    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    No, no, and no. If someone has an lspace.org address, this means
    exactly one thing: that at one point in time, the L-Space Cabal saw
    reason (usually, but not always, having to do with fandom involvement)
    to offer that person an address.

    Having an lspace.org address (or, indeed, being a member of the Cabal)
    does not necessarily make you a personal friend of any other lspacer.
    It does not bestow wisdom or intelligence, politeness or tact, power or
    abilities, beyond what you already have. It does not mean you have
    signed a contract or made a promise to uphold certain values or act a
    certain way.

    Among the lspace.org crowd you will find people who don't know of each
    other's existence, people who have come to hate each other's guts,
    people who are close Internet or real life friends, and even people
    involved in serious relationships with each other up to and including
    marriage and procreation.

    Lspacers who maintain a specific service do control that service, of
    course, and this does make the Cabal in particular a rather "powerful"
    entity, but that is not intrinsically related to the presence of an
    lspace.org address, and any such power certainly stops at the newsgroup
    or chat channel border.

    If there is any extra respect that the Ankh-Morporkian crew of
    lspace.org individuals may have been getting around the net; any
    inclination from folks to sit up and pay closer attention when one of
    us says something, then that is based solely on the personal track
    record, expertise, and general worthiness of the lspacer in question,
    never simply on the fact that they are using an lspace.org address to
    sign their opinions.



9.  What do I do if I have a complaint about someone@lspace.org?
    ------------------------------------------------------------

    Complaints form the other side of the respect coin mentioned in the
    previous question. In both cases, care should be taken not to confuse
    lspace.org with the individual people in its "address space".

    In the words of the standard disclaimer: the L-Space Cabal can not be
    held responsible for any individual lspacer's actions or words. If
    there is a problem, take it up with them privately first, or try to
    find other ways of resolving your conflict.

    However, if you feel the Cabal really does need to know about the
    problem or complaint in question (which would typically only be the
    case if it also directly involved one of the lspace.org services
    themselves), you should always feel free to send us a note about it at
    <cabal@lspace.org>, and we will address the issue to the best of our
    capabilities.



10. Should I be scared of approaching the L-Space Cabal? They have been
    around so long! They know so much! They are so wise! I've heard they
    flame people! I am such a newbie! Won't they flame *me*? Or laugh in my
    face?
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------

    Nope. True. True. Well, if you say so. Not as the Cabal. So? No. Never!

    See also the answer to question 7.

    If you have *any* questions or suggestions or comments, please do not
    hesitate to contact us in e-mail. Be assured we will always look
    forward to hearing from you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
The L-Space Cabal  <cabal@lspace.org>:
    Robert Collier (London, UK)    Leo Breebaart (Delft, NL)
    Mike Knell (Dublin, IE)        Colm Buckley (Dublin, IE)