Sounds like you got some pretty great engagement out of this experiment! Great work! This exact kind of project, and the space of related ideas seems well worth exploring further.
The five people that we decided to reject were given feedback about their translations as well as their motivation letters. We also provided two simple call-to-actions to them: (1) read our blog and join our newsletter, and (2) follow our FB page and attend our public events. None of these five people have so far done these actions to our awareness.
Semi-general comment regarding rejections: I think, overall, rejection is a sensitive matter. And if we do want rejected applicants (to stipends, jobs, projects, …) to try more or to maintain their interest in the specific project and in EA overall, we need to take a lot of care. I’m, for example, concerned that the difficulty of getting jobs at EA orgs and the situation of being rejected from them discourages many people from engaging closer with EA. Perhaps just being sympathetic and encouraging enough will do a lot of good. Perhaps there’s more we could do.
Sounds like you got some pretty great engagement out of this experiment! Great work! This exact kind of project, and the space of related ideas seems well worth exploring further.
Semi-general comment regarding rejections: I think, overall, rejection is a sensitive matter. And if we do want rejected applicants (to stipends, jobs, projects, …) to try more or to maintain their interest in the specific project and in EA overall, we need to take a lot of care. I’m, for example, concerned that the difficulty of getting jobs at EA orgs and the situation of being rejected from them discourages many people from engaging closer with EA. Perhaps just being sympathetic and encouraging enough will do a lot of good. Perhaps there’s more we could do.