Totally understandable. I deliberately didn't read the comments beforehand to not influence my own reply. Few were really worth discussing and were more extra background information and/or advice.
Things like "However, pretending that Mexico is a poor, crime-ridden country when it is a far more complicated and nuanced place than simply only poverty or only crime (although they still very much exist) is not only disingenuous, it is discriminatory and potentially racist." detracts from the story because none of that is relevant to the points about convention size and the furry fandom. It's also a dubious point because it is a poor country that does have a very high crime rate. Of course there are complications, there always are, but that doesn't invalidate the overall picture. And it's not racist to recognise there is poverty and crime in Mexico. It also becomes a form of othering when you treat people differently because of their race or nationality. We should treat people equally and criticisms of something like high crime rates or low levels of wealth are facts and should be addressed the same way regardless of what country we're talking about.
To really draw conclusions about the furry fandom from convention sizes, it might be good to have something to compare it to. For example, this Quora post (https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-largest-academic-conferences-in-science?share=1) suggests that the biggest scientific conferences are mostly in the US but scientific research has been going on in Europe for centuries more. Something like that would suggest that bigger furry conventions in the US have less to do with momentum and more to do with a different cultural approach to organising events. But that's just a quick thought, it would need a more thorough investigation to say anything concrete.
If you are interested in fandom history, I can recommend Joe Strike's book, Furry Nation. It's overall quite good despite some weaknesses. Unfortunately, one of the major weaknesses is that it's very America-centric. (I reviewed it here: https://www.flayrah.com/7272/review-furry-nation-joe-strike)
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
Totally understandable. I deliberately didn't read the comments beforehand to not influence my own reply. Few were really worth discussing and were more extra background information and/or advice.
Things like "However, pretending that Mexico is a poor, crime-ridden country when it is a far more complicated and nuanced place than simply only poverty or only crime (although they still very much exist) is not only disingenuous, it is discriminatory and potentially racist." detracts from the story because none of that is relevant to the points about convention size and the furry fandom. It's also a dubious point because it is a poor country that does have a very high crime rate. Of course there are complications, there always are, but that doesn't invalidate the overall picture. And it's not racist to recognise there is poverty and crime in Mexico. It also becomes a form of othering when you treat people differently because of their race or nationality. We should treat people equally and criticisms of something like high crime rates or low levels of wealth are facts and should be addressed the same way regardless of what country we're talking about.
To really draw conclusions about the furry fandom from convention sizes, it might be good to have something to compare it to. For example, this Quora post (https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-largest-academic-conferences-in-science?share=1) suggests that the biggest scientific conferences are mostly in the US but scientific research has been going on in Europe for centuries more. Something like that would suggest that bigger furry conventions in the US have less to do with momentum and more to do with a different cultural approach to organising events. But that's just a quick thought, it would need a more thorough investigation to say anything concrete.
If you are interested in fandom history, I can recommend Joe Strike's book, Furry Nation. It's overall quite good despite some weaknesses. Unfortunately, one of the major weaknesses is that it's very America-centric. (I reviewed it here: https://www.flayrah.com/7272/review-furry-nation-joe-strike)
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~