I would like to see clearer disclosure of your institutional ties, insofar as knowledge of these ties might affect people’s assessment of the direction in which your advice might be biased. Proactive disclosure would also help you preempt criticism or dismissal of your advice due to your institutional affiliations.
I’m also curious for others’ thoughts on whether such disclosure would be helpful.
Here’s a suggested disclosure.
“I am affiliated with the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) [description] and 80000 Hours [description]. I have written a book on the effective altruism movement and have been described as a “co-founder” of effective altruism. I also gave the closing keynotes at Effective Altruism Global in 2015 and 2016. Views expressed here are solely my own but are informed by my experience working at CEA and 80000 Hours and interacting with people in the context of the effective altruism movement. While I have a vested personal interest (in financial and prestige terms) in increased funding flowing to the effective altruism movement and to the two institutions I am affiliated with, I believe that my advice is not compromised by this vested interest.”
This disclosure seems too long to me (e.g. talking about EAG speeches?), perhaps because it is doubling up as both a barb and a suggestion. Here’s my suggestion:
“Disclosure: I am CEO of the Center of Effective Altruism, which is funded by the donations of effective altruists, including donors who earn to give.”
Disclosure: I have done paid consulting for CEA, and have interacted with it from its founding (and with Will from before that).
[ETA: as you say, one could also link to a longer conflicts of interest page, but one needs something in the post since most won’t follow the link, and that can’t be too long.]
I see your point about long disclosures being cumbersome. I believe a better solution is to have a canonical long disclosure and simply to link to it with a brief description. I just added a canonical long disclosure about my relationship with GiveWell at http://vipulnaik.com/givewell/ and I have edited my two recent EAF posts about them to include a disclosure link to that. I will try to do the same for any further posts or comments I write about GiveWell, and write similar canonical long disclosures to link to for topics that I frequently write about and have had long, complicated associations with.
My assumption would be that basically everyone who reads this post knows who I am, and from the upvote/downvote ratio, it seems that others probably agree. But I don’t think there’s much harm in regularly using Carl’s disclosure (except for his abominable American spelling of ‘Centre’ ;) ), as it’s a reasonable general norm to have.
I would like to see clearer disclosure of your institutional ties, insofar as knowledge of these ties might affect people’s assessment of the direction in which your advice might be biased. Proactive disclosure would also help you preempt criticism or dismissal of your advice due to your institutional affiliations.
I’m also curious for others’ thoughts on whether such disclosure would be helpful.
Here’s a suggested disclosure.
“I am affiliated with the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) [description] and 80000 Hours [description]. I have written a book on the effective altruism movement and have been described as a “co-founder” of effective altruism. I also gave the closing keynotes at Effective Altruism Global in 2015 and 2016. Views expressed here are solely my own but are informed by my experience working at CEA and 80000 Hours and interacting with people in the context of the effective altruism movement. While I have a vested personal interest (in financial and prestige terms) in increased funding flowing to the effective altruism movement and to the two institutions I am affiliated with, I believe that my advice is not compromised by this vested interest.”
This disclosure seems too long to me (e.g. talking about EAG speeches?), perhaps because it is doubling up as both a barb and a suggestion. Here’s my suggestion:
“Disclosure: I am CEO of the Center of Effective Altruism, which is funded by the donations of effective altruists, including donors who earn to give.”
Disclosure: I have done paid consulting for CEA, and have interacted with it from its founding (and with Will from before that).
[ETA: as you say, one could also link to a longer conflicts of interest page, but one needs something in the post since most won’t follow the link, and that can’t be too long.]
I see your point about long disclosures being cumbersome. I believe a better solution is to have a canonical long disclosure and simply to link to it with a brief description. I just added a canonical long disclosure about my relationship with GiveWell at http://vipulnaik.com/givewell/ and I have edited my two recent EAF posts about them to include a disclosure link to that. I will try to do the same for any further posts or comments I write about GiveWell, and write similar canonical long disclosures to link to for topics that I frequently write about and have had long, complicated associations with.
Did you mean “blurb” instead of “barb”?
No.
As in you’re criticizing the lack of a disclosure at the same time as providing information.
My assumption would be that basically everyone who reads this post knows who I am, and from the upvote/downvote ratio, it seems that others probably agree. But I don’t think there’s much harm in regularly using Carl’s disclosure (except for his abominable American spelling of ‘Centre’ ;) ), as it’s a reasonable general norm to have.