Editing Dragonriders of Pern (section)

==Fandom==

The Pern fandom consists of a large variety of fan communities. The largest part of the fandom is made up by clubs that allow their members to 'play' Pern by creating original characters within the setting of Anne McCaffrey's world. To avoid conflicts with Pern canon and trademarks, each club typically chooses a particular location and timeline as a unique setting different from Anne McCaffrey's established history of Pern. Most commonly, clubs are named for the main Weyr chosen as playing location.

Historically, the first clubs started out publishing printed fanzines containing fanfiction and artwork. With the advent of the internet, clubs using online technology such as roleplay via chat or email ([[Play-by-mail game|PBeM]]) became popular. Text-based online virtual reality games, primarily MUSH and MUCK variants such as ''PernMUSH'', have modeled Pern since the early 1990s. In the mid '90s, stringent rules were placed on the creation of new clubs and the governance of existing clubs, resulting in legal action against some fans.<ref>{{cite web |date=1 April 1997 <!-- date of letter as published --> |url=http://chillingeffects.org/fanfic/notice.cgi?NoticeID=143 |title=Letter concerning Dee's Dragonrider Art Gallery |work=Chilling Effects |access-date=8 November 2011}}</ref> For example, no new fan-created MU* games were allowed while the game rights were licensed to [[Ubisoft]] for the development of the ''Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern'' computer game (released in 2001).

In November 2004, Anne McCaffrey relaxed her fandom rules significantly and allowed Pernese fanfiction to be posted freely throughout the Internet. Soon after, fanfiction sites such as [[FanFiction.net]] started offering the opportunity to post and read fanfiction based on Anne McCaffrey's works. The relaxing of the rules also resulted in the appearance of message board–based games as another popular club type. Fan sites no longer require approval and are not bound to the formerly strict canon rules, resulting in fan clubs testing out alternatives such as new dragon colors or off-Pern scenarios.

From 2000 until 2005, Anne McCaffrey's website offered a popular discussion forum and chat (The Kitchen Table) for fans to interact with each other and with the author. After its discontinuation in January 2005, several fan-organized discussion forums have taken its place as an outlet for fan activity.

Offline, the largest Pern fan gathering was WeyrFest, held yearly at [[Dragon*Con]] beginning in 1992. Anne McCaffrey and Todd McCaffrey were frequent attendees at WeyrFest, offering fans a chance to meet the authors in person. Anne was originally scheduled to attend the 2011 Dragon*Con, but had deferred her appearance until the 2012 event due to heart problems, just a few months before her death in late November of that year. In 2013, Weyrfest was folded into Dragon*Con's Fantasy Literature track, along with Robert Jordan's ''Wheel of Time'' series.