Talk:Gen Con

If we list "Gen Con 0," should the International Federation of Wargamers event be listed in the timeline chart too?
Obviously it is listed in the text block about "Gen Con 0," but it really has as much claim to being the first Gen Con as Gary's informal gathering does (other than in location), insofar as it was the first attempt at a national convention and was organized by some of the same people. 2604:2D80:D380:A500:0:0:0:9EA1 (talk)
 * The key difference is that we have reliable sources calling the event "Gen Con 0" retroactively so it should be connected here. 207.229.139.154 (talk) 09:51, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
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 * Gen-Con Red Box Cover Art Dragon Sculpture, 2010.JPG

Where should Gen Con 2020 be listed?
User:Mappy44 has changed the listing for Gen Con 2020 like so with the argument in the edit summary as "Online events should not be filed under Indianapolis event category". I'm wondering what anyone else thinks of this? BOZ (talk) 20:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Make a new category for online events or change the category to include online events. Mappy44 (talk) 23:47, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Gen Con 2015 is listed as 5 days
While Gen Con Indy is officially 4 days, some sources may include the Wednesday before. Every other year is listed with a 4-day duration. The 2015 event was not any different in length, but this article cites a source that includes the extra day (Wednesday). For the sake of consistency, this should also be a 4-day duration. The dates should be: July 30 - August 2, 2015, according to this Gen Con press release: https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=2f77d2f8c77398c0b064223ba&id=241e0bebbb&e=fdf270c5e5 47.183.251.234 (talk) 21:16, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
 * If it's an obvious error that you have found the source to prove, you have the right to WP:FIXIT. 8.37.179.254 (talk) 21:57, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Princess Diana's death has no relevance to Gen Con
There is a sentence in the article that reads "The European convention was held in England for 8 years, eventually migrating from Camber Sands in the mid-1990s to Loughborough, where the final UK-based European event was held in 1997; the same weekend on which Princess Diana died."

The "same weekend on which Princess Diana died" is not useful information, as it forces the reader to look up the date of her death. Princess Diana also has no relevance to Gen Con, as she is not known for attending any Gen Con events. She wasn't even in the UK when she died, so there is no connection at all. Unless someone can provide a citation that proves that the convention flopped because of news of Princess Diana's death, the coincidence is not notable.

I think this should be changed to the actual date of the last European Gen Con event. Big Mac (talk) 21:54, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Gen Con 2023 -- Is it REALLY the 55th Anniversary?
An "anniversary" is (by definition) an annual thing. It's right there in the beginning of the word, _anno_ for year.

Gen Con 2023's description lists "20th Year in Indianapolis, 55th Anniversary". But that's not entirely true. The 55th anniversary of Gen Con was 2022. There simply wasn't an actual Gen Con event on its 53rd anniversary (in 2020), which now has everything a bit askew. It's certainly accurate that Gen Con is _treating_ 2023 as its 55th anniversary, but I'm not sure it's Wikipedia's place to simply repeat what someone else claims.

TLDR: 2022 was the 55th anniversary of Gen Con. 2023 was the 55th "year of the convention" (which is also the language used in other parts of the adjacent table).

Suggestion: Change all occurrences of "anniversary" to "year of the convention" to be both accurate and consistent.

DBalling (talk) 20:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Rather than try to think it through ourselves (WP:OR) we should go by what reliable sources say. Are WP:RS reporting this as the 55th anniversary, or are they saying "well, not really..."? 8.37.179.254 (talk) 21:22, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I'd wager that any reliable sources would just be repeating whatever Gen Con is saying on the matter, rather than actually working through the logic themselves independently. It seems reasonable, IMHO, to use the same language we use throughout the earlier portions of the table, and shy away from "anniversary" (which is ambiguous, especially in an event which is both *potentially-but-not-definitively* zero-indexed, and which has skipped a year).
 * That's not "original research" but simply being internally consistent in how we describe it. DBalling (talk) 03:23, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think that questioning reliable sources is standard practice, but YMMV. Now, if you've got one to support your position, I'd call that another story. 2601:240:E200:3B60:4892:50D7:8343:5EBA (talk) 04:49, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I mean, let's just take a step back and look at it a different way: Why do _we_ stop calling it (in our table) "the NNth year of Gen Con" and move to using the "NNth anniversary" language.
 * Forget everything (for a moment) about anniversary vs. not. Isn't the change from anniversary to year-of justified *just* on that basis alone? to bring our description of more recent iterations of the con into consistency with how we'd been doing it before.
 * Now, that then raises a question about whether we should instead bring the old ones into compliance with the newer language, but then that's when I'd make the argument that there's a lot of ambiguity with that language (the combination of 0-indexing and the skipped year) so that the old language is objectively better and more accurate.
 * No? What am I missing? DBalling (talk) 13:58, 11 August 2023 (UTC)