Just want to register some disagreement here about the name change, to others in this thread and Will (not just you Gemma!). In rough order of decreasing importance:
I really don’t like the name MoreGood. It’s a direct callback to LessWrong. I don’t want to have to endorse LW to endorse EAF, or EA more generally, or the causes we care about, and this name change would signal that. Yes, there’s some shared intellectual history, but I don’t think LW-rationalism is inherent to or necessary for EA.
For people new to/interested in EA, they’ll probably search for “EA” or “Effective Altruism”. They wouldn’t know the rebrand or name change unless there was a way to preserve it for SEO.
I think EA Forum is fine, and it is the major place for EA discussion online at the moment. I don’t think it’s that unrepresentative of EA?
Any other online forum will also be skewed towards those online or ‘extremely online’. I think EA Twitter is much worse for this than the Forum.
In the spirit of do-ocracy, there’s no reason that other people can’t set up an alternative forum with a different focus/set of norms, though it will probably suffer from the network effects that make it difficult to challenge social media incumbents.
I do accept it was just a small draft suggestion though.
I really don’t like the name MoreGood. It’s a direct callback to LessWrong. I don’t want to have to endorse LW to endorse EAF, or EA more generally, or the causes we care about, and this name change would signal that. Yes, there’s some shared intellectual history, but I don’t think LW-rationalism is inherent to or necessary for EA.
I don’t think it would signal this to many people.
For people new to/interested in EA, they’ll probably search for “EA” or “Effective Altruism”. They wouldn’t know the rebrand or name change unless there was a way to preserve it for SEO.
To me this is a feature, not a bug. I personally think having a slightly higher barrier to entry (you have to be engaged enough to have found the forum via other means than the first page of Google results) would do this forum good overall.
I think EA Forum is fine, and it is the major place for EA discussion online at the moment. I don’t think it’s that representative of EA?
I think having a very descriptive name is probably not worth the increase in times this forum gets quoted with more apparent authority than it actually has. [Edit: This is quite theoretical. These are the only actual examples I can think of right now and they’re basically fine.]
Any other online forum will also be skewed towards those online or ‘extremely online’. I think EA Twitter is much worse for this than the Forum.
Agreed. It’s still a downside to me that a less clear name means that there’ll be more fairly engaged EAs who end up with just Twitter etc. to discuss EA online.
In the spirit of do-ocracy, there’s no reason that other people can’t set up an alternative forum with a different focus/set of norms, though it will probably suffer from the network effects that make it difficult to challenge social media incumbents.
Sure, but the name change would make people feel more empowered to? (And I’m undecided on whether more forums would be good or bad.)
I wonder if “the CEA forum” would work? Low edit distance, gives the idea that it’s related to EA while not necessarily representing all of it. Downside is that it works less well if CEA changes their name.
Just want to register some disagreement here about the name change, to others in this thread and Will (not just you Gemma!). In rough order of decreasing importance:
I really don’t like the name MoreGood. It’s a direct callback to LessWrong. I don’t want to have to endorse LW to endorse EAF, or EA more generally, or the causes we care about, and this name change would signal that. Yes, there’s some shared intellectual history, but I don’t think LW-rationalism is inherent to or necessary for EA.
For people new to/interested in EA, they’ll probably search for “EA” or “Effective Altruism”. They wouldn’t know the rebrand or name change unless there was a way to preserve it for SEO.
I think EA Forum is fine, and it is the major place for EA discussion online at the moment. I don’t think it’s that unrepresentative of EA?
Any other online forum will also be skewed towards those online or ‘extremely online’. I think EA Twitter is much worse for this than the Forum.
In the spirit of do-ocracy, there’s no reason that other people can’t set up an alternative forum with a different focus/set of norms, though it will probably suffer from the network effects that make it difficult to challenge social media incumbents.
I do accept it was just a small draft suggestion though.
Some thoughts from me (as a big fan of MoreGood):
I don’t think it would signal this to many people.
To me this is a feature, not a bug. I personally think having a slightly higher barrier to entry (you have to be engaged enough to have found the forum via other means than the first page of Google results) would do this forum good overall.
I think having a very descriptive name is probably not worth the increase in times this forum gets quoted with more apparent authority than it actually has. [Edit: This is quite theoretical. These are the only actual examples I can think of right now and they’re basically fine.]
Agreed. It’s still a downside to me that a less clear name means that there’ll be more fairly engaged EAs who end up with just Twitter etc. to discuss EA online.
Sure, but the name change would make people feel more empowered to? (And I’m undecided on whether more forums would be good or bad.)
I wonder if “the CEA forum” would work? Low edit distance, gives the idea that it’s related to EA while not necessarily representing all of it. Downside is that it works less well if CEA changes their name.