I hope the contest will consider lower effort but insightful or impactful submissions to account for this?
Yes, very short submissions count. And so should “low effort” posts, in the sense of “I have a criticism I’ve thought through, but I don’t have time to put together a meticulous writeup, so I can either write something short/scrappy, or nothing at all.” I’d much rather see unpolished ideas than nothing at all.
Secondly, I’d expect people with the most valuable critiques to be more outside EA since I would expect to find blindspots in the particular way of thinking, arguing and knowing EA uses. What will the panelists do to ensure they can access pieces using a very different style of argument? Have you considered having non-EA panelists to aid with this?
Thanks, I think this is important.
We (co-posters) are proactively sharing this contest with non-EA circles (e.g.), and others should feel welcome and encouraged to do the same.
Note the incentives for referring posts from outside the Forum. This can and should include writing that was not written with this contest in mind. It could also include writing aimed at some idea associated with EA that doesn’t itself mention “effective altruism”.
It obviously shouldn’t be a requirement that submissions use EA jargon.
I do think writing a post roughly in line with the Forum guidelines (e.g. trying to be clear and transparent in your reasoning) means the post will be more likely to get understood and acted on. As such, I do think it makes sense to encourage this manner of writing where possible, but it’s not a hard requirement.
To this end, one idea might be to speak to someone who is more ‘fluent’ in modes of thinking associated with effective altruism, and to frame the submission as a dialogue or collaboration.
But that shouldn’t be a requirement either. In cases where the style of argument is unfamiliar, but the argument itself seems potentially really good, we’ll make the effort — such as by reaching out to the author for clarifications or a call. I hope there are few really important points that cannot be communicated through just having a conversation!
I’m curious which non-EA judges you would have liked to see! We went with EA judges (i) to credibly show that representatives for big EA stakeholders are invested in this, and (ii) because people with a lot of context on specific parts of EA seem best placed to spot which critiques are most underrated. I’m also not confident that every member of the panel would strongly identify as an “effective altruist”, though I appreciate connection to EA comes in degrees.
Thirdly, criticisms from outside of EA might also contain mistakes about the movement but nonetheless make valid arguments. I hope this can be taken into account and such pieces not just dismissed.
Yes. We’ll try to be charitable in looking for important insights, and and forgiving of innacuracies from missing context where they don’t affect the main argument.
That said, it does seem straightforwardly useful to avoid factual errors that can easily be resolved with public information, because that’s good practice in general.
What plans do you have in place to help prevent and mitigate backlash[?]
My guess is that the best plan is going to be very context specific. If you have concerns in this direction, you can email criticism-contest@effectivealtruism.com, and we will consider steps to help, such as by liaising with the community health team at CEA. I can also imagine cases where you just want to communicate a criticism privately and directly to someone. Let us know, and we can arrange for that to happen also (“we” meaning myself, Lizka, or Joshua).
Replying in personal capacity:
Yes, very short submissions count. And so should “low effort” posts, in the sense of “I have a criticism I’ve thought through, but I don’t have time to put together a meticulous writeup, so I can either write something short/scrappy, or nothing at all.” I’d much rather see unpolished ideas than nothing at all.
Thanks, I think this is important.
We (co-posters) are proactively sharing this contest with non-EA circles (e.g.), and others should feel welcome and encouraged to do the same.
Note the incentives for referring posts from outside the Forum. This can and should include writing that was not written with this contest in mind. It could also include writing aimed at some idea associated with EA that doesn’t itself mention “effective altruism”.
It obviously shouldn’t be a requirement that submissions use EA jargon.
I do think writing a post roughly in line with the Forum guidelines (e.g. trying to be clear and transparent in your reasoning) means the post will be more likely to get understood and acted on. As such, I do think it makes sense to encourage this manner of writing where possible, but it’s not a hard requirement.
To this end, one idea might be to speak to someone who is more ‘fluent’ in modes of thinking associated with effective altruism, and to frame the submission as a dialogue or collaboration.
But that shouldn’t be a requirement either. In cases where the style of argument is unfamiliar, but the argument itself seems potentially really good, we’ll make the effort — such as by reaching out to the author for clarifications or a call. I hope there are few really important points that cannot be communicated through just having a conversation!
I’m curious which non-EA judges you would have liked to see! We went with EA judges (i) to credibly show that representatives for big EA stakeholders are invested in this, and (ii) because people with a lot of context on specific parts of EA seem best placed to spot which critiques are most underrated. I’m also not confident that every member of the panel would strongly identify as an “effective altruist”, though I appreciate connection to EA comes in degrees.
Yes. We’ll try to be charitable in looking for important insights, and and forgiving of innacuracies from missing context where they don’t affect the main argument.
That said, it does seem straightforwardly useful to avoid factual errors that can easily be resolved with public information, because that’s good practice in general.
My guess is that the best plan is going to be very context specific. If you have concerns in this direction, you can email criticism-contest@effectivealtruism.com, and we will consider steps to help, such as by liaising with the community health team at CEA. I can also imagine cases where you just want to communicate a criticism privately and directly to someone. Let us know, and we can arrange for that to happen also (“we” meaning myself, Lizka, or Joshua).