I would prefer it quite a lot if this post didn’t have me read multiple paragraphs (plus a title) that feel kind of clickbaity and don’t give me any information besides “this one opportunity that Effective Altruists ignore that’s worth billions of dollars”. I prefer titles on the EA Forum to be descriptive and distinct, whereas this title could be written about probably hundreds of posts here.
A better title might be “Why aren’t EAs spending more effort on influencing individual donations?” or “We should spend more effort on influencing individual donations”.
I appreciate this response because I think it’s symbolic of something I think is important.
EA has a lot of internal norms, like any group. It seems like on the EA forum one of those is to use more factual, descriptive, neutral titles. But elsewhere, the norm is to be attention getting, provocative, etc. You could fairly call this ‘clickbait’ if you’d like. Clickbait exists because it works. It is startlingly effective, and not just at cheap engagement that dies quickly. It’s effective at prompting deep engagement as well. One quick example—video essayists on youtube who do incredibly informative deep dives on technical subjects still use clickbait titles, image previews, etc. The big channels literally have consultants that help A/B test which reaction face will get more clicks. It doesn’t detract from the quality of their videos or the depth of their communities, it’s just part of what you have to do to get people to care.
My experience is more in that world. I’m used to phrasing things with the explicit goal to make people click, draw their eyeballs, cause a stir, etc. By using that kind of title on the EA forum, I’ve probably committed a minor faux pas. But it actually does help me illustrate the point that EAs shouldn’t be allergic to that kind of thing all the time.
EAs using factual, descriptive, neutral titles on their own forums is an interesting quirk of the community. But if EAs only ever use factual, descriptive, neutral language in all forums, that’s a strategic mistake, and hinders their ability to effectively communicate with the public. This comment is a corollary to the ‘Pick a fight’ argument—I believe that sometimes EAs need to abandon internal norms in order to win attention for their ideas.
I think this comment misses the point. The crux is not whether clickbait does in fact draw attention – the fact that clickbait works is precisely why we don’t want it on the forum. We have a limited amount of attention to spend, and encouraging clickbait means necessarily drawing away attention from less-clickbaity posts.
“But if EAs only ever use factual, descriptive, neutral language in all forums, that’s a strategic mistake, and hinders their ability to effectively communicate with the public.”
I don’t think the purpose of the EA forum is to communicate with the public.
If EA starts to abandon internal norms about factual communication that’s bad. It hinders what EA is about. When a GiveWell analyst gets told not to speak about the drawbacks of a certain cause because that might demotivate people to donate to that cause, that’s a problem. That kind of behavior should happen less not more.
Fighting for keeping the core norms intact is important.
(I was about to send something like this as a private message, any opinions on that vs a comment?) (I did in fact send a similar message very recently, should it have been a comment?)
I think it’s not obvious in this case what is better, though I think I mildly prefer publicly. Sending it privately keeps the conversation less tense and has less risk of making people feel embarrassed, but sending it publicly is better for helping newcomers orient to the culture (99% of people never post or comment, so private norm enforcement is a losing battle, especially if you hope that EA Forum norms expand to the in-person realm).
I would prefer it quite a lot if this post didn’t have me read multiple paragraphs (plus a title) that feel kind of clickbaity and don’t give me any information besides “this one opportunity that Effective Altruists ignore that’s worth billions of dollars”. I prefer titles on the EA Forum to be descriptive and distinct, whereas this title could be written about probably hundreds of posts here.
A better title might be “Why aren’t EAs spending more effort on influencing individual donations?” or “We should spend more effort on influencing individual donations”.
I appreciate this response because I think it’s symbolic of something I think is important.
EA has a lot of internal norms, like any group. It seems like on the EA forum one of those is to use more factual, descriptive, neutral titles. But elsewhere, the norm is to be attention getting, provocative, etc. You could fairly call this ‘clickbait’ if you’d like. Clickbait exists because it works. It is startlingly effective, and not just at cheap engagement that dies quickly. It’s effective at prompting deep engagement as well. One quick example—video essayists on youtube who do incredibly informative deep dives on technical subjects still use clickbait titles, image previews, etc. The big channels literally have consultants that help A/B test which reaction face will get more clicks. It doesn’t detract from the quality of their videos or the depth of their communities, it’s just part of what you have to do to get people to care.
My experience is more in that world. I’m used to phrasing things with the explicit goal to make people click, draw their eyeballs, cause a stir, etc. By using that kind of title on the EA forum, I’ve probably committed a minor faux pas. But it actually does help me illustrate the point that EAs shouldn’t be allergic to that kind of thing all the time.
EAs using factual, descriptive, neutral titles on their own forums is an interesting quirk of the community. But if EAs only ever use factual, descriptive, neutral language in all forums, that’s a strategic mistake, and hinders their ability to effectively communicate with the public. This comment is a corollary to the ‘Pick a fight’ argument—I believe that sometimes EAs need to abandon internal norms in order to win attention for their ideas.
I think this comment misses the point. The crux is not whether clickbait does in fact draw attention – the fact that clickbait works is precisely why we don’t want it on the forum. We have a limited amount of attention to spend, and encouraging clickbait means necessarily drawing away attention from less-clickbaity posts.
I don’t think the purpose of the EA forum is to communicate with the public.
If EA starts to abandon internal norms about factual communication that’s bad. It hinders what EA is about. When a GiveWell analyst gets told not to speak about the drawbacks of a certain cause because that might demotivate people to donate to that cause, that’s a problem. That kind of behavior should happen less not more.
Fighting for keeping the core norms intact is important.
(I was about to send something like this as a private message, any opinions on that vs a comment?) (I did in fact send a similar message very recently, should it have been a comment?)
I think it’s not obvious in this case what is better, though I think I mildly prefer publicly. Sending it privately keeps the conversation less tense and has less risk of making people feel embarrassed, but sending it publicly is better for helping newcomers orient to the culture (99% of people never post or comment, so private norm enforcement is a losing battle, especially if you hope that EA Forum norms expand to the in-person realm).