03 Why are there two groups? (Tolkien)
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This article is from the Tolkien Newsgroups FAQ, by Steuard Jensen sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu with numerous contributions by others.
03 Why are there two groups? (Tolkien)
Originally, AFT was the only Tolkien newsgroup on Usenet. RABT was
created (when the approval vote passed on 26 Mar 1993) as a replacement
for AFT which would be carried by a larger fraction of news servers.
However, AFT was never removed, and both groups currently enjoy
substantial readership. While only RABT has a formal charter (see
question II.A.1 for reference), the two groups are virtually identical
in intended content.
Many participants see a tendency for RABT to be somewhat more
"scholarly" in tone while AFT is a bit more "conversational", and some
suggest that this distinction is useful and should be encouraged.
Other participants draw less of a distinction between the two groups,
and often believe that a difference in focus would be both undesirable
and impossible to achieve. In practice, everyone decides for
themselves how they want to treat the two groups, and most people
generally don't complain one way or the other.
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