Ben Yalow, event planner for the 2004 World Science Fiction Convention, noticed an unexpected number of hits and queries to the convention Web site this year. However, the added interest had nothing to do with the event itself, held September 2 to 6 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Instead, it was because of that other big convention in town this year, the Democratic National Convention.

It turns out that the event, also known as the Worldcon, had a Web address very similar to the DNC's official URL, thus the source of confusion among Democrats. The Worldcon's site is located at www.boston2004.com while the DNC address is www.boston04.com. The thing is, WorldCon registered for the Boston2004 domain long before it knew anything about the DNC coming to Boston in 2004.

“No, John Kerry is not speaking at our convention,” joked Yalow. The WorldCon site got so many e-mails, even volunteer forms, from Democrats that it created a separate Web page on its site for wayward Donkeys. The page lists 70 reasons why the 62nd World Science Fiction Convention is not the DNC, including this gem: “Our promises for the future are supposed to be fiction.” While not the DNC, the WorldCon is a sizeable event in its own right with some 6,000 attendees, making it one of the largest volunteer-run conventions in the country.