Talk:Science fiction convention/Archive 1

Limited content
While the write up is true as far as it goes, I am concerned that it is rather limited in it's content.

In the city I live in (Minneapolis, MN) there are two "Science Fiction" conventions http://www.mnstf.org/minicon/ and http://www.convergence-con.org, another convention devoted to Diversity within Science Fiction [Diversicon|http://www.sfminnesota.com/diversicon/], a convention devoted to science fiction and fantasy surounding Mars [Marscon|http://www.marscon.com/], as well as several conventions related to gaming, and comic books, and conventions dedicated to specific parts of science fiction media (farscape, star treck, babylon 5, star wars, etc.)

I have seen numerous related conventions around my state, and also in the surounding states. At no time has WorldCon been to Minneapolis, though Minicon has petitioned for an appearance in the past. I strongly suspect that there are other people who are concerned that the description as provided is a small subset of what they have observed at conventions in their own area.

The conventions I mentioned above, are all fan run conventions. There are also recurring professional conventions such as DragonCon in Atlanta, which appear to have been completely skipped. I don't know if this is the result of someone feeling that "if it ain't WorldCon, it ain't a real science fiction convention" or just a decision to limit the complete content of the entry.

-Rusty

Maybe a List of science fiction conventions should be made, with order per country/state? Ausir 23:29, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
 * Done. MPS 17:48, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

What about con companies?
This page seems focused on the local, fan-run cons, as is also the case with the listing of conventions page. There's no reference to companies like Creation (US), Vulkon (US) or Starfury (UK) that specialize in organizing multiple cons each year, in different parts of the country. Nolefan32 16:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

If you think the article needsd to mention these companies, go ahead and do it. Many sci-fi fans hate commercial cons, so NPOV must be stickly maintained. -Dr Haggis - Talk 00:03, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps the distinction between the two should be made at the top of the article. The article describes the fan-run cons, and only later describes the commercial conventions, which are usually quite different.--RLent 21:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Found the paragraph about commercial cons buried at the bottom. RLent is right, the article presents itself as being about sci-fi cons in general, but then focuses solely on fan/volunteer-run cons except for one paragraph buried at the bottom, which takes a remarkably negative POV, i.e., making a point to draw out negatives like long lines for autographs (and what, the lines at Dragon*Con are wonderfully short and brisk?). Dr Haggis may be right, that some sci-fi folks may dislike the companies that do it for a business, but like it or not, they are part of the culture and shouldn't be treated like the red-headed stepchild. Either that, or if it's more proper to not consider Creation or Vulkon, etc., as true "cons" but instead as "shows", then that distinction needs to be made up front in the article to avoid confusion. The point of an encyclopedia is for those who don't know about a topic to learn, not for those who are already experts to re-enforce their preconceptions. Nolefan32 02:46, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Dragon*Con is a commercial show, a for-profit corporation (although they don't like to see that mentioned); 2) the buried-at-the-bottom placement for the commercial shows is a sort of compromise between the science fiction fans (who don't consider these things conventions at all), and those who want to give some mention to the commercial shows in this article, for those who (as you say) don't know the difference. -- Orange Mike 15:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)


 * And yet Dragon*Con rates discussion in a section separate from the "commercial con" section. It's not being treated like a red-headed stepchild, no negatives listed about it like "long lines".  Again, the page doesn't seem to be NPOV like it's supposed to be; it's all "talk nice about the cons I like" and "slam the cons I don't". Nolefan32 03:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You're failing to Assume Good Faith. Still, I've done a bit of an edit to addresss your concerns. -- Orange Mike 13:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

501(c)3 in other Countries
Rightly or wrongly, there is a sharp distinction in the minds of some between 501(c)3 and for profit ventures. But that number refers to a US law and embodies a lot of baggage that goes on in the minds of US fans. What are the laws and attitudes in other countries? Australia, UK, EU? Are the tax laws and laws of incorporation in those countries such that there is a distinction at all? Can a non profit fan run con exist in country X? How should someone in the US view a UK con that looks and feels like an for profit venture?--Tbmorgan74 16:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right, 501(c)3 is US-only law, and should be avoided as non-global. Other countries, however, do have similar laws and similar distinctions. I'll see what I can do to universalize the wording. -- Orange Mike 16:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Having looked at the article, I find that the only place that 501(c)3 appears is at the bottom of the page where we learn that the Wikipedia Foundation is a 501(c)3! Looks like a false alarm. -- Orange Mike 16:17, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Photos
Hope these help some; I certainly don't pretend they cover all aspects of an SF convention, but it's what I have time to pull together tonight. Not sure I should pull the reqphoto template off yet. On the other hand this is already pretty photo-heavy for a short article.

And I can't figure out why the Ellison photo doesn't show up in thumbnail; if you click on it you get the full-sized version on the usual photo page, so I appear to have uploaded it properly and typed the name properly.

--Dd-b 04:24, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

More work to be done
POV comments about "guests" and "members" should be moved from lead and cleaned up.

More explanation about guests of honor would be helpful.

A "history" section should be added.

At some point, the "anatomy" section could be renamed and built into a separate article.

Need to mention writing workshops, commercial cons, and so on and so on... Avt tor 18:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Vague, POV comments
The sections on "Professional cons" and "Volunteer cons" describe organizational models, not differences in subject matter; should not be in the same section as "types" of conventions. Also, "professional" is misleading and confusing; the term could easily be applied to cons where a lot of pros show up, e.g. World Fantasy, or else professional conferences like the academic stuff. For-profit conventions are more commonly known as "commercial", not "professional" (not least because most of the for-profit organizers aren't very professional). The section on "idiosyncrasy" seems, well, overstated and gratuitously off-putting; certainly unsourced POV. The new sections are somewhat wordy and subjective. I'm not immediately reverting because (a) I don't own this page and (b) however subjectively the sections are phrased, this material is relevant. However this page is on my short list for a significant rewrite, similar to the science fiction page. I plan on adding sources, and when I get to that, anything I can't find a source for will get a fact tag. Avt tor 08:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Changed "professional" to "commercial" per your suggestion.-- Orange Mike 22:58, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I knew there was a better word than "professional" but it wasn't coming to mind. Jiawen 00:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Nominal List of science fiction conventions has been taken over
This article, while still retaining its old name, has been merged with other lists of anime cons, comic book shows, horror cons, etc. and is now an indiscriminate hotchpotch of media shows, furrymeets, comics expositions, Creation "Cons" and everything else. I don't know what, if anything, we can do about it. The motivation appears (though I must AGF) to have been to make it easier for t-shirt dealers and the like to decide where to go on a given weekend, rather than for fans to find actual science fiction conventions. -- Orange Mike 23:03, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Idiosyncrasy
It seems to me that the idiosyncracy section of the article should be moved to the Minicon page since it focuses exclusively on that con. If it remains here, it should spotlight a few idiosyncracies from different cons (no more than one each). Shsilver 16:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Restructure
The article has evolved with a number of different sections, some of which seemed to fit better together or could be rationalised. I've made an attempt to restructure and simplify the article. Hope other editors agree.

In general the article seems long on unencyclopaedic text which is comprehensible only to regular fans, and short on references for notability. Hopefully that can change with time.

I also wonder about some of the grouping descriptions for cons, as some of them seem post-hoc or an attempt to impose a particular framework on events which are by nature changeable, fluid and influenced by current cultural trends. VJDocherty (talk) 15:08, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Formatting and placement of pictures
The pictures are all placed into a single section, "Guests of Honor", though they don't have anything particular to do with that subject. They run down the right-hand edge of the page past a number of sections, whose "edit" links are all jammed together. I don't know how to fix this formatting in a WP-preferred way, but somebody must know. --Thnidu (talk) 00:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

upcomingcons.com link
Orangemike removed the External link to http://www.upcomingcons.com/science-fiction-conventions, describing it as
 * ad-supported, incredibly limited listings; no value

He may find it worthless, but I don't. I am researching the names of cons for a paper to be submitted to a peer-reviewed journal. I have over 200 names so far, but I found several cons at this site that I was unaware of. I find the ads not very intrusive, and each entry has a link to the con's official website. I'm undoing the removal, and adding a note to the link to warn anyone else who may want to avoid ad-supported sites.

--Thnidu (talk) 21:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Being ad supported does not (and should not) disqualify a site as many very reliable sources have ad supported sites. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 22:45, 26 June 2009 (UTC)


 * It only lists 15 conventions in the next year, out of the dozens yet to come. Compared to the advertising drivel the reader is subjected to, I don't see any value to it. -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  00:25, 27 June 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a matter of "YMMV". Your compromise wording suggests that you agree at least in part, and I have no problem with it. --Thnidu (talk) 10:18, 30 June 2009 (UTC)