To be clear, though, we were not trying to be untransparent: we were just busy with other things and didn’t prioritize this. At that point, it seemed that making sure that the schedule would make sense, that volunteers would know what to do, or that registration would happen was more urgent than writing up and publishing our thought process.
Yeah, I think this is the crux here. Especially post-event, the untransparency aspect is the part of my criticisms that I care about most, and if I were persuaded they were wrong I’d have a lot less to say.
Some background that didn’t come across in the post is that, given CEA’s place in the community and the kinds of projects it takes up (and the impact of that on others in the community who might want to do similar projects), I think it’s very important that CEA in particular is highly transparent about the decisions it makes and why it makes them – to the point, if necessary, of investing in extra capacity to make this extra transparency possible. I think this is important both to make sure the core functions that CEA carries out are being done as well as possible, and to let other orgs learn from CEA’s lessons, updates and mistakes. I wouldn’t apply the same standards of transparency to all EA orgs (though I think we should generally be aiming for high transparency in most areas).
That said, I do think there was quite a bit that could have been done to increase transparency relatively easily, including (in escalating order of effort):
Including a few sentences and links in the expansion notification post, explaining and supporting the key updates underlying the change.
Writing a short Forum post summarising the various short arguments that were later made in private to me during feedback on this post.
Publishing any quick-and-dirty models and other materials CEA used to make the decision to expand.
Publishing redacted or summarised versions of the advice CEA received from its COVID advisory board (I think this should have been done for ~all COVID decisions made by the CEA events team).
It’s possible I’m underestimating the amount of work some of these would have required; in that case, though, now (i.e. after the event) seems like a great time to write that up more carefully for publication.
Beyond the question of transparency around materials, though, I’m also very interested in transparency around process. What was the process by which CEA decided to expand? What sorts of evidence were gathered? How heavily did COVID weigh in this decision? Did CEA make quantitative estimates of the COVID risk of EAG attendees, and the effect of the changes in size on this? (If so, those seem like things that would have been fairly easy to share.)
I think it’s very important that CEA in particular is highly transparent about the decisions it makes and why it makes them – to the point, if necessary, of investing in extra capacity to make this extra transparency possible.
I agree, for many forms of transparency (like information people need to make decisions), though less so for other forms (our internal reasoning about event management). We’re doing a lot right now to scale up our capacity.
“ I do think there was quite a bit that could have been done to increase transparency relatively easily, including (in escalating order of effort) [...] It’s possible I’m underestimating the amount of work some of these would have required”
My guess is that you are underestimating the amount of work—and especially mental energy and foresight— required for this, or perhaps you’re overestimating how much free time we had while planning the conference. It’s also plausible that doing some or any of the things you list was genuinely a good idea at the time, and something we should have done, even at the cost of spending less time on other priorities. If that’s true, we didn’t realize it at the time.
“now (i.e. after the event) seems like a great time to write that up more carefully for publication.”
The Events Team is actually quite busy after EA Global. (As we mentioned, we’re working on hiring/onboarding — and there’s always another event to plan.) We may still end up writing and publishing something to this effect, although it would probably be less focused on this specific decision than what you suggest.
What was the process by which CEA decided to expand? What sorts of evidence were gathered? How heavily did COVID weigh in this decision?
This decision was made over the span of approximately a week, after a bunch of meetings and ad hoc conversations. We consulted several experts, including our COVID Board, and we went through several iterations of an expansion design. I don’t have time to carefully write out all the things that happened in this process.
On transparency
Yeah, I think this is the crux here. Especially post-event, the untransparency aspect is the part of my criticisms that I care about most, and if I were persuaded they were wrong I’d have a lot less to say.
Some background that didn’t come across in the post is that, given CEA’s place in the community and the kinds of projects it takes up (and the impact of that on others in the community who might want to do similar projects), I think it’s very important that CEA in particular is highly transparent about the decisions it makes and why it makes them – to the point, if necessary, of investing in extra capacity to make this extra transparency possible. I think this is important both to make sure the core functions that CEA carries out are being done as well as possible, and to let other orgs learn from CEA’s lessons, updates and mistakes. I wouldn’t apply the same standards of transparency to all EA orgs (though I think we should generally be aiming for high transparency in most areas).
That said, I do think there was quite a bit that could have been done to increase transparency relatively easily, including (in escalating order of effort):
Including a few sentences and links in the expansion notification post, explaining and supporting the key updates underlying the change.
Writing a short Forum post summarising the various short arguments that were later made in private to me during feedback on this post.
Publishing any quick-and-dirty models and other materials CEA used to make the decision to expand.
Publishing redacted or summarised versions of the advice CEA received from its COVID advisory board (I think this should have been done for ~all COVID decisions made by the CEA events team).
It’s possible I’m underestimating the amount of work some of these would have required; in that case, though, now (i.e. after the event) seems like a great time to write that up more carefully for publication.
Beyond the question of transparency around materials, though, I’m also very interested in transparency around process. What was the process by which CEA decided to expand? What sorts of evidence were gathered? How heavily did COVID weigh in this decision? Did CEA make quantitative estimates of the COVID risk of EAG attendees, and the effect of the changes in size on this? (If so, those seem like things that would have been fairly easy to share.)
I agree, for many forms of transparency (like information people need to make decisions), though less so for other forms (our internal reasoning about event management). We’re doing a lot right now to scale up our capacity.
My guess is that you are underestimating the amount of work—and especially mental energy and foresight— required for this, or perhaps you’re overestimating how much free time we had while planning the conference. It’s also plausible that doing some or any of the things you list was genuinely a good idea at the time, and something we should have done, even at the cost of spending less time on other priorities. If that’s true, we didn’t realize it at the time.
The Events Team is actually quite busy after EA Global. (As we mentioned, we’re working on hiring/onboarding — and there’s always another event to plan.) We may still end up writing and publishing something to this effect, although it would probably be less focused on this specific decision than what you suggest.
This decision was made over the span of approximately a week, after a bunch of meetings and ad hoc conversations. We consulted several experts, including our COVID Board, and we went through several iterations of an expansion design. I don’t have time to carefully write out all the things that happened in this process.