Talk:List of gaming conventions

First header
I believe it was Phantastacon not Phantasticon. It ran from 1981 to 1986.

-- The correct spelling is Phantastacon. I still have the trophy for "Phantastacon '85, Traveller - 2nd Team" and somewhere in my study is the plaque for being a member of the winning D&D team at an earlier Phantastacon. The conventions could include Cosplay, Live Action Role Playing (LARP) and tournaments for different games systems such as D&D, Traveller, etc. D&D dominated the convention.

There are references to Phantastacon at: Periodical - Multiverse, Issue - 4 (Winter-1985), Page - 23, Article - Phantastacon 85 Report http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/147819/20140917-1844/playitagainproject.org/role-playing-games-conventions-in-1980s-and-local-community/index.html

The html at http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/162922/20180608-1006/www.ourdigitalheritage.org/archive/playitagain/role-playing-games-conventions-in-1980s-and-local-community/feed/index.html did not render in Chrome so I've extracted the raw text:

Phantastacon was started in 1981 by Joe Italiano who still runs Alternate Worlds in Bayswater. It ran at the Melbourne Townhouse (which is now Rydges on Swanston) over Easter. It was inspired by the first Cancon, which Joe had attended and he hoped to turn it in to a general games convention, so there were some board games and some very early computer games of which Steve was one. There were about 650 attendees all up from memory. The Dungeons and Dragons tournament however, ended up dominating the convention with 408 players (51 teams of 8) playing a three session tournament. Andrew South and I did the scheduling and were up to about 4am doing so. There was a convention banquet, with a costume parade (cosplay is not a new phenomena!).]]> <![CDATA[ Hmm, okay didn&#8217;t remember replying to this 2 years ago and never realised you&#8217;d asked for more info, sorry Helen. No, I didn&#8217;t have a computer in 1981, so taking a game would&#8217;ve been a bit pointless. Phantastacon was started in 1981 by Joe Italiano who still runs Alternate Worlds in Bayswater. It ran at the Melbourne Townhouse (which is now Rydges on Swanston) over Easter. It was inspired by the first Cancon, which Joe had attended and he hoped to turn it in to a general games convention, so there were some board games and some very early computer games of which Steve was one. There were about 650 attendees all up from memory. The Dungeons and Dragons tournament however, ended up dominating the convention with 408 players (51 teams of 8) playing a three session tournament. Andrew South and I did the scheduling and were up to about 4am doing so. There was a convention banquet, with a costume parade (cosplay is not a new phenomena!). ]]>

Additional information on Phantastacon may be available through Alternate Worlds ( http://www.alternateworlds.com.au/ ) in Bayswater, Victoria, Australia.

Nuremberg Toy Fair
Actually, I'm not convinced, that Nuremberg International Toy Fair is a 'gaming convention'. After all, it's a trade fair for toy professionals only - no gamers and fans admitted...--VArakawa (talk) 12:31, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Gamescom
Wasn't there also a Gamescom in cologne? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.219.16.7 (talk) 18:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Organization
The "Asia-Pacific" section includes a lot of countries not in that area. 24.47.83.138 (talk) 10:45, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

United States I am finding the order by Census Regions Confusing Can we just go by State in alphabetical order — Preceding unsigned comment added by JWKTrucker (talk • contribs) 20:02, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Inclusive List pending Noteworthiness & Verifiability
I'd like to see a more up to date list of conventions on Wikipedia Perhaps something similar to this: http://gameconventioncentral.com/ The hassle of creating a separate Wikipedia page for each convention interferes. Is it possible to have either 2 separate List pages, or perhaps 2 sections: 1. "Confirmed Noteworthy" with it's own Wikipedia entry 2. Inclusive list without requiring Notability or Verifiability beyond Convention's own website.

Is there anyone watching this that is likely to object or revert such an edit? 76.254.54.254 (talk) 03:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would go contrary to WP:NOTDIR as well as WP:N and WP:V. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:39, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem with that is that as JHunterJ said, it'd just be a directory. The problem with that is that eventually we'd have this large and gargantuan list that would be incredibly hard to maintain and verify. Think of it this way: what would be easier for you to maintain: a list of every redhead in the state of New York or a list of every notable redhead in the state of New York? There are hundreds of conventions held in the world. Some pop up literally overnight and never get beyond one gathering. Some never even get to that point- they announce their intent but never actually hold the event. Others can call themselves cons but aren't really what many would consider to be conventions. Basically, lists have to have some sort of qualifications to keep it from being just a phonebook directory of conventions. That's not what we're here for. There are already multiple websites that do just that, such as the link you provided. We're here to list the notable conventions. Of course that doesn't mean that people don't go about trying to create articles for non-notable conventions in order to try to get around the list, but people are getting better about nominating those for deletion when they are created. Wikipedia isn't meant to be all inclusive. It might sound bad, but we're an exclusive website. You have to show notability for something to merit an entry. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   13:29, 1 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes there are many websites that have list of conventions of many sorts but they rely on the host of those sites to maintain the listings I would like Wiki to keep a list of conventions because it is centralized and anyone can update it there is no one person burdened with keeping it updated. Those list of convention sites are only as good as the number of people that know about them everyone has heard of Wiki. I want to help clean up these list diversify them and ask the people putting on these conventions to help maintain them. I want the state pages to have a section on entertainment and tourism that covers amusement parks, fan conventions, Festivals... A lot of these conventions are struggling because they are listed in places where only the die hard fans are looking. To help keep these conventions alive we need to talk about them where the common fan can stumble across them. That is how we get new die hard fans. The best list I have found is the Furry Convention list on the cover page of wikifur.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by JWKTrucker (talk • contribs) 20:41, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem is, we're not a tourist guide. We're not a guide of any sort when it comes to conventions or any form of entertainment. We're not here to advertise small and unnoticed conventions. That's not what our purpose is. We keep lists of things that are notable. Most conventions aren't. We're not a directory of every convention or entertainment format ever held anywhere. At the risk of sounding rude, if you want a website that does this, go to a place such as Wikia and create one yourself. Lists of those nature are considered inappropriate and it's not up to Wikipedia to promote things. I'll flat out tell you that creating lists and sections of this nature is considered to be advertising at best and at worst, out and out spam. (There is a slight difference.) It's nice that you want to help out conventions and whatnot, but I can't emphasize enough how incredibly inappropriate and against Wikipedia's guidelines that line of thinking is. I wish that more could be done for the little guys of the convention circuit, but we're not a forum for advertising. I'll warn you that trying to add things along those lines here could lead to someone getting blocked as a spammer or for disruptive editing if they add them and continue to add them despite warnings. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   06:22, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I can agree that an inclusive list is pointless but there should be a history of gaming conventions. Gaming conventions pre-internet are not well documented and there is a danger that the information will be lost. Pointless to document every convention but the notable milestones should be captured. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pdp11.caps11 (talk • contribs) 14:19, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

PlayIT, Hungary
I say this to all those who think PlayIT isn't a large convetion, which means it isn't listed on the in this article, and also not listed Hungary, that's a f**king as*h0le, who doesn't wash himself/herself like the f**king Frenches (also known as SHITS) in the middle ages, and a f**king RO ┌∩┐(◣_◢)┌∩┐. I'M HUNGARIAN AND PROUD OF IT! ;-) Unknown4887 10:57, 16 May 2015 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unknown4778 (talk • contribs)

External links to for-profit directories
I removed the links to various lists, as it seemed like many of them were run on a clear for-profit basis (in one case, outright selling event promotion), or with the aim of generating a network to feed into promotions on other sites. Some are arguably "better" than others in this sense, but even better is would be link to the DMOZ and let them sort it out. GreenReaper (talk) 08:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * So we can only link to sites without ads now? There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in the External links article about that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.101.107.10 (talk) 22:14, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Why does the Con need to have a Wikipedia entry to be listed? There are hundreds of Cons out there with valid URLs that we can point people to, but now we can't?  --Jackvinson (talk) 19:28, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Location Links - Are they needed?
The links to Wikipedia entries on the location seem to be over-the-top for this kind of listing. It also doesn't help to view the information on a small screen - too easy to click the location link instead of the link to the gaming convention itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackvinson (talk • contribs) 13:08, 5 March 2018 (UTC)