Politicians hold meet and greets in their home territories and only really talk to the people who agree with them. This survey felt like that. I expect to see an announcement where they claim that X% of the GenCon crowd agree with this, that and whatever other thing they are looking for. A simple suggestion box at the convention would have been cheaper and given a better feel as to what the crowd wants.

While I have no issues with that I don’t want Gen Con to become a place where any specific group is catered to. Gen Con should remain a place where all are treated equal and all labels are dropped except that of Gen Con attendee. 

Everyone should be allowed to enjoy Gen Con as they see fit and if their view of enjoying Gen Con isn’t something that someone else agrees with they have the ability to walk away from it. 

I went to the Gen Con dance in 2019 briefly. I saw two guys dancing or should I say fry humping each other. I didn’t care to see that so I left rather than stay and watch that and possibly others doing things I didn’t care to see. 

just don’t let others affect your ability to enjoy Gen Con. It’s not worth getting upset over when there are other things to do. 

This is an explanation of the survey.

https://mobile.twitter.com/cypheroftyr/status/1417241557942611968

Also, I mean, I don't know this person, but saying it is "mostly men" is a bit hyperbolic, though true in the literal sense that more men attend. From my observation and posting about it a couple years ago, I would guess it's about 1:3 ratio of female to male currently. If someone were to tell me a gathering was "mostly x" I would imagine more like a 1:5 or 1:10 ratio. 
 

Of 18k group members, it's 34% female, 64% male and 2% custom.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the gender distribution is closer for younger ages. 44% of group members aged 25-34 are female.

I found this whole thing to be offensive and infantilizing of people of color. 

The survey was slightly awkwardly worded, and as Ryric said, seems to be asking about your first gen con which... with a number of us won't be relevant to the here and now.

Gen Con has always been one of the more welcoming and friendly cons I've been to, but there is often room for improvement, and assuming everything is a-ok will not help to find the places that could be improved. Making certain of a safe and welcoming environment for people who have historically been excluded means checking in to see if the measures taken are working. It's not a one and done.

It also *has* to be fairly visible. Groups who are historically excluded from the hobby, or who are discriminated against generally, need explicit welcome. It's not enough to just say "everyone is welcome" because that often comes with strings attached. Everyone is welcome as long as you go with the flow and don't actually say anything about any problems.

Opening the floor to marginalized people and actually listening when they say something is in need of improvement is the only way to know what needs improvement.

I see all kind of ppl at gencon of all color, race, gender,ect of course there is more white people since they make up the vast majority of the populace. I honestly don't care if ever presenter was Latino no more then I care if they are all blonde headed, I care about the topic there presenting which I believe the vast majority of attendees do. 

Sorry if I went off on a tangent but this " fill in the box" mentality drives me nuts, ppl should get there roles based on there skill set not to fill in a box.

It was a silly survey.  Not sure who put it together, but it was poorly done.

I do agree that this survey was delivered in a strange way considering the goal is clearly to figure out what the convention can do to get people who feel marginalized to feel less marginalized.  Most of the people seeing this survey are quite obviously not feeling terribly marginalized as they are reading e-mail sent directly to them from Gen-Con, so presumably they have a degree of comfort with the show already.  But that does not mean they should not be taking the survey.  Maybe it should have had the second or third item be like "if you believe there are zero problems with diversity at Gen-Con, click here," and stop wasting your time.

For the record, despite somehow being the most left-wing person in this thread, I have never seen any discriminatory behavior in action at Gen-Con (other than the old name "Spousal Activities" and the literal-ball-and-chain icon, which they did fix), which I love.  It is one of the many reasons this is my favorite time of every year.  But, I am also a straight white dude who has almost exclusively attended with other straight white dudes.  I have no doubt there are a lot of very interesting stories coming in through this survey that may lead to some subtle but positive changes in the future.  I know some people are well-meaning when they say that equality should mean everyone is treated the same, but we would not have lactation rooms or low-stimulation/quiet areas or even handicapped-accessible entrances/bathrooms if we went all-in on the logic that everyone should be treated the same to achieve equality.

Anyone posting here barely disguising their disgust for people not like them might want to seriously consider whether you are part of the problem, though.

though I do think in 2018-2019(? The years all blend together now) the icon was at least changed to a different symbol.

Nice to see some things do change....even though I didn’t think much of this particular survey, it is true there is always room for improvement.

Adapt this example to GenCon looking to be more inclusive. Should we offer discounted tickets to increase diversity? Free tickets? Pay diverse people to come? Again, it's an oversimplification of the problem with no easy answer. Every dollar spent on one cause is not spent on another cause.

We the GenConners (do we have a name?) need to invite and include everyone who loves to game and geek out without having to pay for the elephant doors. There is a cost to making the con more inclusive but being more inclusive means more people and more money for GenCon. The survey, while poorly worded, is looking to find the balance without breaking the bank.

Sadly, some will read this or already think "every dollar spent on them is not a dollar spent on me!" and that's true. That's the "negative impact" you will find when we look to include more people. As a middle child, white, cis male with no problems I can't solve I see lots of money and attention given to others in need. And I'm okay with that and I hope you are too. But I hope that the next time you see a ramp or automatic opening door you'll think upon this rant and smile.

What people are pointing out was that the survey was constructed clunky and awkward. It also seemed to have a per-drawn conclusion that the reason there are not more minority groups at Gen Con was that the current attendee base was somehow being exclusionary and not welcoming. That right there is just wrong. The vast majority of con goers are welcoming and inclusive. Most of use have been excluded and pushed to the side at one point. The only thing we care about, are you a gamer and here to have fun what ever bend that might take? Ok cool lets sit down and game, or watch movies or go petal a beer car around the city.

If Gen Con wants to point finger they should point them right back at themselves. The powers that be at Gen Con are responsible for marketing. It falls on them to spend their marketing dollars to try to attract different minority groups. It will be interesting to see if they actually get any useful suggestions out of the survey. Helpful suggestion if you put out future surveys like this, just put a screener question upfront which states “We are trying to gather information relevant to increasing attendance of XYZ group. Do you think you can provide valuable insight towards this goal? Yes/No. Clicking no will take you to the general audience questions.” Word your questions without preconceive bias. Saves everyone time and you gather better data in the end.

Representation matters, and seeing people like yourself represented and listened to is important to feeling included. In a hobby that historically caters to white, cis, hetero males (and still has some very loudly upset about even having the *option* of representing others), other demographics may not feel at ease.

It's getting better, yes, and Gen Con is so far quite good at inclusiveness, but again there's always room for more measures. Listening to groups who may feel unwelcome and finding out what can be improved is how you find out if there are problems that someone not from that group doesn't see.