We still plan to use our budget to incentivize and reward strong writing
And elsewhere, you’ve said the goal is to “promote the creation of excellent Forum content.” I think it’s a mistake to see the goal as causing more good content at the expense of identifying and helping spread good content. Good writing is only as effective as the attention it gets. LessWrong has curation and an annual review for this purpose; the EA Forum just has the newsletter, which isn’t sufficiently selective to serve the same role. Regardless of whether there’s money attached, I wish the EA Forum did more to identify great content.
+1
Will the EA Forum also adopt a new quarterly (or monthly, or annual) curation process?
I don’t think the prize caused me to write substantially better posts (though I think it increased my standards a smidgeon) but it definitely caused me to read more high-quality posts. It would be nice to continue getting a selective “greatest hits” highlight.
Agreed. I had previously read 2 of the 5 posts that received a prize, but then in addition to reading Aaron’s thoughts here I clicked on and read 1.5 more of the prize-winning posts before reaching the comment section here. I doubt I would have read them had they not been featured, and I am glad I read them.
And elsewhere, you’ve said the goal is to “promote the creation of excellent Forum content.” I think it’s a mistake to see the goal as causing more good content at the expense of identifying and helping spread good content. Good writing is only as effective as the attention it gets. LessWrong has curation and an annual review for this purpose; the EA Forum just has the newsletter, which isn’t sufficiently selective to serve the same role. Regardless of whether there’s money attached, I wish the EA Forum did more to identify great content.
+1 Will the EA Forum also adopt a new quarterly (or monthly, or annual) curation process?
I don’t think the prize caused me to write substantially better posts (though I think it increased my standards a smidgeon) but it definitely caused me to read more high-quality posts. It would be nice to continue getting a selective “greatest hits” highlight.
Agreed. I had previously read 2 of the 5 posts that received a prize, but then in addition to reading Aaron’s thoughts here I clicked on and read 1.5 more of the prize-winning posts before reaching the comment section here. I doubt I would have read them had they not been featured, and I am glad I read them.
We four in this thread could nominate ourselves as judges. Let me know!
I will miss the Prize, it helps me identify which of the effortposts I should read.