Thanks for this shortform! I’d like to quickly clarify a bit about our strategy. TL;DR: I don’t think the Forum team optimizes for engagement.
We do track engagement, and engagement is important to us, since we think a lot of the ways in which the Forum has an impact are diffuse or hard to measure, and they’d roughly grow or diminish with engagement.
But we definitely don’t optimize for it, and we’re very aware of worries about Goodharting.
Besides engagement, we try to track estimates for a number of other things we care about (like how good the discussions have been, how many people have gotten jobs as a result of the Forum, etc), and we’re actively working on doing that more carefully.
And for what it’s worth, I think that none of our major projects in the near future (like developing subforums) are aimed at increasing engagement, and neither have been our recent projects (like promoting impactful jobs).
And for what it’s worth, I think that none of our major projects in the near future (like developing subforums) are aimed at increasing engagement, and neither have been our recent projects (like promoting impactful jobs).
I wasn’t counting that as a major project, but Draft Amnesty Day also wasn’t aimed at optimizing engagement (and I’d be surprised[1] if it helped or hurt engagement in a significant way). That was motivated by a desire to get people to publish drafts (which could have cool ideas) that they’ve been sitting on for a while. :)
Thanks for this shortform! I’d like to quickly clarify a bit about our strategy. TL;DR: I don’t think the Forum team optimizes for engagement.
We do track engagement, and engagement is important to us, since we think a lot of the ways in which the Forum has an impact are diffuse or hard to measure, and they’d roughly grow or diminish with engagement.
But we definitely don’t optimize for it, and we’re very aware of worries about Goodharting.
Besides engagement, we try to track estimates for a number of other things we care about (like how good the discussions have been, how many people have gotten jobs as a result of the Forum, etc), and we’re actively working on doing that more carefully.
And for what it’s worth, I think that none of our major projects in the near future (like developing subforums) are aimed at increasing engagement, and neither have been our recent projects (like promoting impactful jobs).
What about Draft Amnesty?
I wasn’t counting that as a major project, but Draft Amnesty Day also wasn’t aimed at optimizing engagement (and I’d be surprised[1] if it helped or hurt engagement in a significant way). That was motivated by a desire to get people to publish drafts (which could have cool ideas) that they’ve been sitting on for a while. :)
Edit: can confirm that at a glance, engagement on Friday/this weekend looks normal