I agree with Zach here (and I’m also a fan of Holly). I think it’s great to spotlight people whose applications you’re excited about, and even reasonable for the tone to be mostly positive. But I think it’s fair for people to scrutinize the exact claims you make and the evidence supporting those claims, especially if the target audience consists of potential donors.
My impression is that the crux is less about “should Holly be funded” and more about “were the claims presented precise” and more broadly some feeling of “how careful should future posts be when advertising possible candidates.”
A related point, speaking for myself: The likelihood of me funding these projects based on descriptions if these are mainly to hype is lower, because I may not have the time and energy to evaluate how much they are hyped, and I don’t know Manifund’s track record well enough to defer. On the other hand, if I have reason to believe these are well-calibrated statements then I’m more likely to be happy to defer in future. Don’t feel like you should change your approach based on one individual’s preferences, but just thought this might be a useful data point.
Yeah idk, this just seems like a really weird nitpick, given that you both like Holly’s work...? I’m presenting a subjective claim to begin with: “Holly’s track record is stellar”, as based on my evaluation of what’s written in the application plus external context.
If you think this shouldn’t be funded, I’d really appreciate the reasoning; but I otherwise don’t see anything I would change about my summary.
I agree with Zach here (and I’m also a fan of Holly). I think it’s great to spotlight people whose applications you’re excited about, and even reasonable for the tone to be mostly positive. But I think it’s fair for people to scrutinize the exact claims you make and the evidence supporting those claims, especially if the target audience consists of potential donors.
My impression is that the crux is less about “should Holly be funded” and more about “were the claims presented precise” and more broadly some feeling of “how careful should future posts be when advertising possible candidates.”
Just another +1 to Zach and Akash.
A related point, speaking for myself: The likelihood of me funding these projects based on descriptions if these are mainly to hype is lower, because I may not have the time and energy to evaluate how much they are hyped, and I don’t know Manifund’s track record well enough to defer. On the other hand, if I have reason to believe these are well-calibrated statements then I’m more likely to be happy to defer in future. Don’t feel like you should change your approach based on one individual’s preferences, but just thought this might be a useful data point.
Yeah idk, this just seems like a really weird nitpick, given that you both like Holly’s work...? I’m presenting a subjective claim to begin with: “Holly’s track record is stellar”, as based on my evaluation of what’s written in the application plus external context.
If you think this shouldn’t be funded, I’d really appreciate the reasoning; but I otherwise don’t see anything I would change about my summary.