Talk:Worldcon

MergeFrom World Science Fiction Society

The WSFS page is currently considered a stub, and indeed there's very little there. Since WSFS has almost no existence separate from the Worldcon, merging the two seems to make a lot of sense. Worldcon could have a "governance" or "World Science Fiction Society" section.

Jordan Brown 19:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I support merging the articles. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 08:05, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment - In theory at some point we could expand the material to warrant a separate page. Until we get around to that, a "WSFS" section on the Worldcon page would be sufficient. WSFS has a little existence separate from the Worldcon itself (i.e. the Mark Protection Committee and of course NASFiC), and one could go on at considerable length about how the business meeting works. (This isn't on my short list.) In the interim, I'm not exactly supporting the merge; this is more of a non-objection. Avt tor 08:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the previous comment that WSFS has no significant existence separate from Worldcon and the articles should be combined. If sufficient material for the WSFS section is developed that it needs its own page, then that can be done in future. VJDocherty 14:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree to a merger, but not to the choice of umbrella article. Worldcon is the main activity of WSFS and thus is the sufficient material that warrants a separate WSFS page. I support redirect for Worldcon. You could compare with IBBY, another litterature oriented organization. Its main activity is to organize its biennial congress, which so far does not even have a wiki-entry... :/ Kurtan 08:05, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not particularly obsessive about which article is the "real" article and which is the redirect, but I'd bet that a pretty significant fraction of the people who know about Worldcon don't really know much (if anything) about WSFS, and that every single person who knows about WSFS knows about Worldcon. Worldcon is the more visible of the two. Jordan Brown 09:08, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the umbrella article should be Worldcon. WSFS was only created after Worldcon had been running for a while, it only exists because Worldcon does, and its members *become* members only by joining Worldcon. Also agree Jordan's comment - Worldcon is well knows - WSFS not. VJDocherty 14:11, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, I was WP:BOLD and did it. I'm pretty happy with the result. The only two places that bother me a little are (a) there were a few references to the non-English versions of World Science Fiction Society that I didn't know what to do with - I left them in as a comment - and (b) the fact that I had to make WSFS lead directly to Worldcon instead of indirectly through World Science Fiction Society. Jordan Brown 00:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Good for you. I reorganized a little to put the WSFS-specific stuff together in a single section. Avt tor 20:24, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

photos?

Anybody have either a photo of the WSFS banner or of a Hugo? Seems like the banner would be a good lead-in photo for the article, and a Hugo would be better as the photo for the Awards section. Jordan Brown 17:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I commented out the original award picture and added one of the Hugo (also used on the Hugo Award page). Do you like that any better? Shsilver 18:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I suppose. I hate losing photos. Maybe I'll stick the old photo on the Hugo Award page... Avt tor 20:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

That's why I just commented it out rather than delete the line. Easier to replace or move.Shsilver 20:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I like the photo of the award better. Note that the old photo Image:Hugo 2005 2.JPG is still used by 63rd World Science Fiction Convention, which is arguably a better place for it anyway. It's tempting to put it on Hugo Award, but then it'd seem necessary to include such a group photo for each year... and that doesn't really scale. Jordan Brown 23:14, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I was just going to check there. That's fine. Avt tor 16:39, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Worldcon GoH section?

There has been discussion about the deletion of Category:Worldcon Guests of Honor. Leaving aside the pros and cons of that (no pun intended), there seemed to be agreement that if Worldcon GoH status is important, then it should be reflected in the main Worldcon article. I'm happy to be WP:Bold about this, but thought I'd invite some comments first.

Note that if the GoH category *is* deleted, I think we should also update the List of Worldcons page in line with the Long List, which includes the GoHs. VJDocherty 13:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it was deleted. I created the category and the first I knew of the discussion was when I saw the bot deleting it. Not sure how a delete was reached since the majority of respondants in the poll voted to keep. Agree with all your points. Shsilver 15:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Vince. I believe the administrator has made a mistake and I have asked for an explanation on his talk page. I intend to challenge this decision. Avt tor 16:38, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm updating the List of Worldcons in line with the discussion - it needed to be done anyway, and I'll hopefully get it finished in the next day or so (it's a fiddly job). Anyone want to create a GoH section in Worldcon? W.R.T. the deletion review of the GoH category, we will see what happens. I think there are both content and precedural issues. For instance the overcategorisation issue may be important for the big names like Asimov, where being Worldcon GoH was one among many professional and peer 'awards', but for many of the other GoH's the Worldcon GoH status is a major recognition of their contribution. Similarly when you look at the other categories under Asimov, one wonders why this category was chosen for deletion first, (though I'm not proposing speedy deletion of the other categories now...). Thanks all for your energy in the discussion, whatever the final outcome! VJDocherty 17:54, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I have taken your suggestion and added a section on guests of honor. It's a very first draft; feel free to edit. (Please edit to improve accuracy, not length.) Avt tor 21:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Update: Thanks to Avt tor's intervention the 'category for deletion' discussion was reopened and the category itself was reinstated. There was one additional delete comment (see below) and then an admin (I think) closed it again as 'no consensus' which I assume means it stays for now.

I was actually responding to the new delete comment when the discussion was closed again - here is what I was going to write:

• • Comment - That is factually incorrect about Worldcon which is a non-profit convention, with no paid staff, and the oldest continuously in existence. (It is true about some gateshow type events, and cons focussed on specific subjects like comics or the media, but we aren't talking about those.) The selection of the GoHs is a decision made with great care by most Worldcon committees and in fact it is more common for the people honoured to have made a major contribution in the field, than to be a commercial draw. Do we have to poll a number of recent Worldcon GoHs to show how much of an award it felt to them? Just look at the list of names on the category - it represents a good summary of those who made the greatest contributions to the field, as compared to, say, the general categories of Science Fiction Writers by country. VJDocherty 20:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The category entries need some cleanups. See my comments at Category talk:Worldcon Guests of Honor. Jordan Brown 01:11, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

History Section?

Arguably a key feature of Worldcon - and reason for its significance - is its long history. It would be useful therefore to have a section about its history near the start of the article. That would set the rest of the article in context. Anyone want to have a go? VJDocherty 20:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Guest of Honor or Honour

I just reverted an anonymous edit that had changed the word "honor" to "honour" throughout the article. I usually don't wage the British vs. American English war, but given the ratio of Worldcons in the U.S. to Worldcons in the UK, Australia, and Canada, I thought I'd go ahead and revert the change. If anyone strongly disagrees, we can discuss.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in Denver this August for a little original research.

--JohnPomeranz (talk) 14:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Worldcon as longest running con

(Moving this conversation from User_talk:JohnPomeranz)

Hi John. I saw you removed the 'longest running' text from the Worldcon article. Is that because of Philcon perhaps? If so, is that verifiable? I thought the 1936 event wasn't labelled as 'Philcon', except retroactively? Is there a list somewhere of all the Philcons which could show they were a continuing linked series of cons, rather than events that happened to take place in the same city? (Note, I'm not intending to open up the 36v37 argument at all.) I'm puzzled, since I had always understood that the Worldcon was generally recognised as the longest-running, linked, series of cons. VJDocherty (talk) 12:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Right you are, Vince. I deleted the oldest con claim from Worldcon because some gathering of fans -- in Philly, Leeds, or somewhere else -- predated the 1939 Worlds Fair gathering and was sufficiently convention-like to qualify as the first science fiction convention.

The continuous series of conventions argument might be made for Worldcon based on the fact that the first events now claimed as Philcons weren't labeled as such at the time. (Do we know the year of the first Philcon contemporaneously called that was?) Nonetheless, the claim was sufficiently in question that I didn't think it ought to go in the lead.

See you in Denver, I hope.

(For those not familiar with this longstanding debate about the "first science fiction convention" see Science fiction convention#History.)

--JohnPomeranz (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

John - thanks. I don't think this needs instant resolution. We can hopefully find out more about the 'continuous' issue.

There are plenty of bigger issues with the article anyway such as the lack of a history section (a key reason for Worldcon's Notability) and how it influenced fandom and other cons, compared to the large section on committee minutiae, which certainly isn't notable! The whole article is more fannish than encyclopaedic, IMHO.

See you in Denver (arriving Sunday night).

-- VJDocherty (talk) 16:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Lack of verification

I assume that the Lack of Verification was added by a 'bot. I'll see what I can do to have it removed. --Kovar (talk) 20:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Not added by a bot, but by an individual on August 4, who pointed out (quite correctly) that the article has but a single citation and should be improved with additional references. To remove the verification tag, all that is necessary if for you (or anyone else) to remove the tag at the top of the page when editing, although if done without the addition of more citations, it will likely be added back in by someone else. Shsilver (talk) 23:20, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Typical Activities

I'd love to see a citation showing that Morris Dancing was a typical activity at a Worldcon. Occasional, maybe. Rojomoke (talk) 16:54, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, 8 months later, and no citation. I've removed the line. Rojomoke (talk) 08:48, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

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Short description

This is currently 18 words long, includes an explanatory sentence, and takes effort to read through. I think it should be shortened to a single noun phrase, and any of its information that's not already in the lead section moved there. Musiconeologist (talk) 18:24, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Tightened it up and removed misinformation. --Orange Mike | Talk 15:34, 18 October 2021 (UTC)