People are interested in forming these connections on the Forum
1. Personal connections were on par with 80k and GiveWell in top resource to increase one’s positive impact. Also, for 13% of EA Survey 2020 respondents, personal connections negatively influenced their involvement with EA. This was about twice more likely for highly engaged community members. 16% of people (most of all categories) first learned about EA from a connection. Personal connections are a top reason why people stay involved.
So, personal connections are extremely valuable in introducing people to EA and maintaining their involvement in the community, however, increase persons’ impact only in conjunction with career advising and donation recommendations. At the same time, connections negatively influence the involvement of some community members, especially highly engaged. This can be due to different levels of familiarity with EA (highly engaged member hears from a person less familiar with EA who is possibly presenting lower-impact solutions).
2. 12% of respondents indicated that EA Forum had the most influence on their ability to make a positive impact. The Forum discouraged 6.5% of respondents from their involvement in EA. This was about 4x more likely for highly engaged community members. This can be due to content not fitting one’s interests (familiarity with EA, information on doing the most good with their skills, subjects of expertise or interest, etc).
One approach to addressing this use case is to make Forum bios more robust, e.g. by letting people indicate specific, searchable areas of interest.
Users may be interested in discussing ideas rather than connecting with individuals. Thus, users should be able to search posts by their area of interest. If users are broadly interested in impact, they could benefit from reading posts for audiences around their level of familiarity with EA.
I am more excited about use cases which leverage these advantages.
Readers can be recommended content that would fit their interests (e. g. entertainment, deep thinking, informing others’ research/projects, gaining advice on research/projects, showcasing thinking to employees of various organizations, finding persons who work on similar research/projects, exploring EA landscape, broadening own impact options, gaining career change inspiration, etc) and current thinking (based on EA Forum posts and comments or/and other impact preferences data).
In addition, relevantly to this post, by presenting EA-related events, EA Forum should more prominently serve as a social medium for persons interested in high positive impact, as long as it optimizes for users’ wellbeing.
Thanks! I agree that better recommendations could be useful. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by serving “as a social medium” – could you elaborate on that a bit more?
1. Personal connections were on par with 80k and GiveWell in top resource to increase one’s positive impact. Also, for 13% of EA Survey 2020 respondents, personal connections negatively influenced their involvement with EA. This was about twice more likely for highly engaged community members. 16% of people (most of all categories) first learned about EA from a connection. Personal connections are a top reason why people stay involved.
So, personal connections are extremely valuable in introducing people to EA and maintaining their involvement in the community, however, increase persons’ impact only in conjunction with career advising and donation recommendations. At the same time, connections negatively influence the involvement of some community members, especially highly engaged. This can be due to different levels of familiarity with EA (highly engaged member hears from a person less familiar with EA who is possibly presenting lower-impact solutions).
2. 12% of respondents indicated that EA Forum had the most influence on their ability to make a positive impact. The Forum discouraged 6.5% of respondents from their involvement in EA. This was about 4x more likely for highly engaged community members. This can be due to content not fitting one’s interests (familiarity with EA, information on doing the most good with their skills, subjects of expertise or interest, etc).
Users may be interested in discussing ideas rather than connecting with individuals. Thus, users should be able to search posts by their area of interest. If users are broadly interested in impact, they could benefit from reading posts for audiences around their level of familiarity with EA.
Readers can be recommended content that would fit their interests (e. g. entertainment, deep thinking, informing others’ research/projects, gaining advice on research/projects, showcasing thinking to employees of various organizations, finding persons who work on similar research/projects, exploring EA landscape, broadening own impact options, gaining career change inspiration, etc) and current thinking (based on EA Forum posts and comments or/and other impact preferences data).
In addition, relevantly to this post, by presenting EA-related events, EA Forum should more prominently serve as a social medium for persons interested in high positive impact, as long as it optimizes for users’ wellbeing.
Thanks! I agree that better recommendations could be useful. I’m not sure I understand what you mean by serving “as a social medium” – could you elaborate on that a bit more?
As one of social media where people can socialize with others online by seeing what others are up to and joining them in conversations and events.