EAG is primarily a networking event, as one-to-one conversations are consistently reported to be the most valuable experiences for attendees. I think there’s less value in very new folks having such conversations
Very involved and engaged EAs might be less eager to come to EAG if the event is not particularly selective.
I would probably also just stop attending an open-invite EA Global since I don’t expect it would really share my culture or be selected for people I would really want to be around. I think this year’s EA Global came pretty close to exhausting my ability to be thrown into a large group of people with a quite different culture of differing priorities, and I expect less selection would cause me to hit that limit quite reliably.
One positive effect of selective admissions that I don’t often see discussed is that it makes me more likely to take meetings with folks I don’t already know.
Though in response to “there is definitely a level of judgement going on”, it may be worth noting that the original claim in the EAG FAQ is that “this is not a judgement about the value of your work or your potential impact in effective altruism”, rather than something like “this is not a judgement at all.”[1]
This isn’t at all to suggest that what people are feeling aren’t valid though—I can definitely see how these might not feel like a meaningful difference.
Edit: MaxRa’s comment about how these measures may in fact be (or seen to be) correlated with social standing may be of interest.
Clearly, answering questions like “is this person facing decisions that an EAG will help them with?” “Will their experience add to the balance of attendees and let others learn from them in a way that’s hard to learn from others’ experiences?” require some level of judgement, and I don’t think Lizka is trying to dispute this.
Some comments below that might be reasonably interpreted as being about ‘quality of conversation’:
Eli Nathan:
Habryka:
Howie Lempel:
Though in response to “there is definitely a level of judgement going on”, it may be worth noting that the original claim in the EAG FAQ is that “this is not a judgement about the value of your work or your potential impact in effective altruism”, rather than something like “this is not a judgement at all.”[1]
This isn’t at all to suggest that what people are feeling aren’t valid though—I can definitely see how these might not feel like a meaningful difference.
Edit: MaxRa’s comment about how these measures may in fact be (or seen to be) correlated with social standing may be of interest.
Clearly, answering questions like “is this person facing decisions that an EAG will help them with?” “Will their experience add to the balance of attendees and let others learn from them in a way that’s hard to learn from others’ experiences?” require some level of judgement, and I don’t think Lizka is trying to dispute this.