The name of this social movement, “effective altruism” actually came out of the name Centre for Effective Altruism, which was meant to be the name of one non-profit, not the title which carried much weight for an entire social movement. At least, as far as I know, that was the original intent. As a shorthand for people outside of Oxford all around the world interetsed in the idea of applying effectiveness to doing good and philanthrophy, the shorthand for this nascent global community of however many few dozen or hundred people constituting effective altruism when it started (five years ago?) was called “effective altruism”. However, the name ‘effective altruism’ was sticky, and now it’s stuck. A couple years ago, in retrospect, there was a couple conversation not just within the Centre for Effective Altruism, but publicly across the whole movement, about whether effective altruism was good name. Everyone agreed the movement and its ideas needed a name, and “effective altruism” is as good as any and in some ways didn’t cause problems other names, e.g., “optimal altruism”, wouldn’t. That’s some long context for where the words “effective altruism” came from, and why we slap them on different websites.
The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA), and its website, just represent the organization out of Oxford itself. “www.effectivealtruism.org” is a website meant as a global landing page for anyone who heard about effective altruism. It was built on behalf of the CEA by their outreach team “EA Outreach”, which also organized the EA Global conferences this last summer. It’s meant to be a first stop for someone who encounters effective altruism online for the first time, and they can sign up for an email newsletterfrom the Centre for Effective Altruism, but not much else. It’s meant to be an intro and PR page, and redirects people to all manner of effective altruism websites which better serve the specific purpose or need of anyone with more specific questions of effective altruism.
The forum: I have found myself reading posts in a number of places but I’m yet to find a well organised, central forum. I have found: a sub-reddit, this forum, .impact, the facebook group, the australian facebook group
Dovetailing what Ryan and Tom already said, The Facebook group and this Forum are the main discussion sites for effective altruism. In this, they’re central for “discussion”. Effective altruism may not need only one online nexus. While I haven’t talked about this much with others, I’m guessing the people who build these sites think effective altruism is better served by having multiple websites in that regard.
Effective altruism is becoming a community with so many people working on so many different types of projects, topics, and organizations, it’s impossible for maybe even the majority of effective altruists anymore to keep up to date on all the developments coming out of any and all arms of the movement. I’m assuming that’s some value you would see in a single central forum for effective altruism. However, that coordination would be difficult enough as is. There are folks from, e.g., the CEA whose full time job is more or less to keep abreast of everything going on, and if there is a new development from one organization or cause so critical everyone should know about it, those folks will go through the most well-read channels to inform everyone as thoroughly as possible.
The various channels for discussion for .impact don’t reflect all of effective altruism. .impact is effective altruism’s decentralized volunteer task force working on EA projects, mostly software ones right now. Don’t worry about anyone mistaking .impact as being the main forum for effective altruism, supplanting another, as that has never been a purpose of .impact.
If this is the central forum, there should be: an easy to find link from the website (whichever one)
I agree there should be more links from central EA websites to one another, or at least links on easier to find pages, such as the splash page of any given website.
multiple categories (including one where new members can post freely).
This would be ideal, but this would be the equivalent of running multiple subreddits, making this Forum an “EA Reddit”. This would be the natural site for such a thing. However, I expect running such a site would be hard. There are only a couple of volunteers who run this website, if I recall correctly. Also, there isn’t a consensus on what those multiple categories would or should be. In the meantime, I believe this forum serves quite well.
The name of this social movement, “effective altruism” actually came out of the name Centre for Effective Altruism, which was meant to be the name of one non-profit, not the title which carried much weight for an entire social movement. At least, as far as I know, that was the original intent. As a shorthand for people outside of Oxford all around the world interetsed in the idea of applying effectiveness to doing good and philanthrophy, the shorthand for this nascent global community of however many few dozen or hundred people constituting effective altruism when it started (five years ago?) was called “effective altruism”. However, the name ‘effective altruism’ was sticky, and now it’s stuck. A couple years ago, in retrospect, there was a couple conversation not just within the Centre for Effective Altruism, but publicly across the whole movement, about whether effective altruism was good name. Everyone agreed the movement and its ideas needed a name, and “effective altruism” is as good as any and in some ways didn’t cause problems other names, e.g., “optimal altruism”, wouldn’t. That’s some long context for where the words “effective altruism” came from, and why we slap them on different websites.
The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA), and its website, just represent the organization out of Oxford itself. “www.effectivealtruism.org” is a website meant as a global landing page for anyone who heard about effective altruism. It was built on behalf of the CEA by their outreach team “EA Outreach”, which also organized the EA Global conferences this last summer. It’s meant to be a first stop for someone who encounters effective altruism online for the first time, and they can sign up for an email newsletterfrom the Centre for Effective Altruism, but not much else. It’s meant to be an intro and PR page, and redirects people to all manner of effective altruism websites which better serve the specific purpose or need of anyone with more specific questions of effective altruism.
Dovetailing what Ryan and Tom already said, The Facebook group and this Forum are the main discussion sites for effective altruism. In this, they’re central for “discussion”. Effective altruism may not need only one online nexus. While I haven’t talked about this much with others, I’m guessing the people who build these sites think effective altruism is better served by having multiple websites in that regard.
Effective altruism is becoming a community with so many people working on so many different types of projects, topics, and organizations, it’s impossible for maybe even the majority of effective altruists anymore to keep up to date on all the developments coming out of any and all arms of the movement. I’m assuming that’s some value you would see in a single central forum for effective altruism. However, that coordination would be difficult enough as is. There are folks from, e.g., the CEA whose full time job is more or less to keep abreast of everything going on, and if there is a new development from one organization or cause so critical everyone should know about it, those folks will go through the most well-read channels to inform everyone as thoroughly as possible.
The various channels for discussion for .impact don’t reflect all of effective altruism. .impact is effective altruism’s decentralized volunteer task force working on EA projects, mostly software ones right now. Don’t worry about anyone mistaking .impact as being the main forum for effective altruism, supplanting another, as that has never been a purpose of .impact.
I agree there should be more links from central EA websites to one another, or at least links on easier to find pages, such as the splash page of any given website.
This would be ideal, but this would be the equivalent of running multiple subreddits, making this Forum an “EA Reddit”. This would be the natural site for such a thing. However, I expect running such a site would be hard. There are only a couple of volunteers who run this website, if I recall correctly. Also, there isn’t a consensus on what those multiple categories would or should be. In the meantime, I believe this forum serves quite well.