I feel strongly that letting people bounce off the forum needs to be an option (and that being on the EAF should be one option among many for people- I think we do everyone a disservice by seeing EA as the be all and end all of impacful work and community). But I also agree that the loss is really sad, potentially anti-impact, and worth trying to fix. Maybe there are ways to onboard people such that it’s a good experience for them and they become good.
Off the top of my head:
have the contest focus on comments or quick takes rather than full posts. People are kinder to those, and it hurts less when they are mean because you put less of yourself into the work. I think the contest probably did participants a disservice but encouraging them to jump straight into big posts.
use an interview format or co-author
offer intensive editing services
spin-off forum. Perhaps in a different language, although if you’re trying to include multiple countries it probably is more efficient to use a colonial language rather than a local one.
Have everyone on the same forum website but with mild partitions by language. Not siloed, but filtered by default. As a bonus, this would stop my feed from being flooded with translated articles.
Onboarding guides for how to write to the forum. I think these technically exist already but don’t reflect actual voting patterns
I like the quick takes idea, extensive editing idea and the co authoring idea. This competition did actually cover a number of your suggestions, including offering free coaching for those who wanted it, and also encouraged co-written articles.
I’m not sure the language suggestions are so important. English is the dominant language of education for the majority of African countries, including I think almost all the origin countries for those entering the contest.
With all this discussion about negative aspects I don’t want to make our like it’s all doom and gloom. A couple of first time posters, for example Natkillu with her amazing reflections on longtermists from an African perspective were both insightful and very well received.
I appreciate this a lot.
I feel strongly that letting people bounce off the forum needs to be an option (and that being on the EAF should be one option among many for people- I think we do everyone a disservice by seeing EA as the be all and end all of impacful work and community). But I also agree that the loss is really sad, potentially anti-impact, and worth trying to fix. Maybe there are ways to onboard people such that it’s a good experience for them and they become good.
Off the top of my head:
have the contest focus on comments or quick takes rather than full posts. People are kinder to those, and it hurts less when they are mean because you put less of yourself into the work. I think the contest probably did participants a disservice but encouraging them to jump straight into big posts.
use an interview format or co-author
offer intensive editing services
spin-off forum. Perhaps in a different language, although if you’re trying to include multiple countries it probably is more efficient to use a colonial language rather than a local one.
Have everyone on the same forum website but with mild partitions by language. Not siloed, but filtered by default. As a bonus, this would stop my feed from being flooded with translated articles.
Onboarding guides for how to write to the forum. I think these technically exist already but don’t reflect actual voting patterns
Nice one again.
I like the quick takes idea, extensive editing idea and the co authoring idea. This competition did actually cover a number of your suggestions, including offering free coaching for those who wanted it, and also encouraged co-written articles.
I’m not sure the language suggestions are so important. English is the dominant language of education for the majority of African countries, including I think almost all the origin countries for those entering the contest.
With all this discussion about negative aspects I don’t want to make our like it’s all doom and gloom. A couple of first time posters, for example Natkillu with her amazing reflections on longtermists from an African perspective were both insightful and very well received.