Do you mean how much good does it do? I suppose the key questions there are how many people new to EA read it, how many of those “get into” EA partly as a result of this, and to what extent it strengthens the commitment of people who read it and are already somewhat into EA.
EA should have an excellent website and a well structured forum. This is a very important foundation to generate sharing ideas and discussion. It also reflects on our image as an organisation. If we are to convince skeptics that we are “effective” at altruism, then we must be effective at running this movement.
As a broad social movement constituted by thousands of people around the world, effective altruism isn’t the sort of thing which would (or should!) have a “main website”. Both of the websites you mentioned belong to a particular organisation, the Centre for Effective Altruism, which shouldn’t be seen as constituting or “owning” effective altruism.
What’s more, I don’t know quite what it would mean for something to be the main EA website. There are many different EA introductions, articles, websites and discussion venues, serving many different functions. Insofar as it makes sense for them to direct people to the EA Forum, they can do so on a case-by-case basis, and insofar as it makes sense for the EA Forum to direct people elsewhere, it can also do so. For example, I help run the Effective Altruism Hub community website, and that points people looking to discuss EA to this Forum, the main Facebook group, and the full list of discussion venues on the EA Wiki.
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.
De facto, I’d say that the two most prominent places for EA discussion are this Forum and the main Facebook group, though both are run independently so they’re not official central forums. As I mentioned there’s a full list of discussion venues on the EA Wiki.
Hi Tom,
Thanks for the reply. What you say makes sense, but I still have the same concerns.
What’s more, I don’t know quite what it would mean for something to be the main EA website.
Something like this: https://www.unrealengine.com/
This is the Unreal Engine website. Similar to EA, it’s a global community of creative people coming together to work on projects and share ideas. It has a useful FAQ, a learning section, a link to the wiki, a community section with a well structured forum and links to associated websites and groups. You can find everything you need to learn more and get involved. It’s not fancy, it just works.
EA falls short of this standard. We have websites but they don’t effectively get the job done. The info is generally available, but not well consolidated/organised. And there’s no decent forum that I can find. Even on your list (thanks for posting it).
I have recently been fairly critical of EA’s internal workings. I apologise if this is causing upset. I have no intention to cause ill-will. I believe that, at this early stage, there should be a lot of work (and review) of how the whole movement is set up and working. I would really like to see EA working really well and my scrutiny is with the best of intentions.
Unreal Engine is a professional industry tool that’s obviously able to have a more polished website than that of a fledgling social movement. It’s fine to have aspirations to match them, and to want to pursue these with a sense of urgency, but people are only going to be able to recieve criticism in a positive spirit if you give them something concrete and constructive to work with - (more specific than ‘well consolidated/organised’). What do you want?
Do you mean how much good does it do? I suppose the key questions there are how many people new to EA read it, how many of those “get into” EA partly as a result of this, and to what extent it strengthens the commitment of people who read it and are already somewhat into EA.
As a broad social movement constituted by thousands of people around the world, effective altruism isn’t the sort of thing which would (or should!) have a “main website”. Both of the websites you mentioned belong to a particular organisation, the Centre for Effective Altruism, which shouldn’t be seen as constituting or “owning” effective altruism.
What’s more, I don’t know quite what it would mean for something to be the main EA website. There are many different EA introductions, articles, websites and discussion venues, serving many different functions. Insofar as it makes sense for them to direct people to the EA Forum, they can do so on a case-by-case basis, and insofar as it makes sense for the EA Forum to direct people elsewhere, it can also do so. For example, I help run the Effective Altruism Hub community website, and that points people looking to discuss EA to this Forum, the main Facebook group, and the full list of discussion venues on the EA Wiki.
De facto, I’d say that the two most prominent places for EA discussion are this Forum and the main Facebook group, though both are run independently so they’re not official central forums. As I mentioned there’s a full list of discussion venues on the EA Wiki.
Hi Tom, Thanks for the reply. What you say makes sense, but I still have the same concerns.
Something like this: https://www.unrealengine.com/ This is the Unreal Engine website. Similar to EA, it’s a global community of creative people coming together to work on projects and share ideas. It has a useful FAQ, a learning section, a link to the wiki, a community section with a well structured forum and links to associated websites and groups. You can find everything you need to learn more and get involved. It’s not fancy, it just works.
EA falls short of this standard. We have websites but they don’t effectively get the job done. The info is generally available, but not well consolidated/organised. And there’s no decent forum that I can find. Even on your list (thanks for posting it).
I have recently been fairly critical of EA’s internal workings. I apologise if this is causing upset. I have no intention to cause ill-will. I believe that, at this early stage, there should be a lot of work (and review) of how the whole movement is set up and working. I would really like to see EA working really well and my scrutiny is with the best of intentions.
Thanks again
Unreal Engine is a professional industry tool that’s obviously able to have a more polished website than that of a fledgling social movement. It’s fine to have aspirations to match them, and to want to pursue these with a sense of urgency, but people are only going to be able to recieve criticism in a positive spirit if you give them something concrete and constructive to work with - (more specific than ‘well consolidated/organised’). What do you want?