2: Greatly empower the EA forum moderator and change its role
This second point is really important. This project will greatly change the moderators role, increasing the prominence and even real world impact of the EA forum moderator.
The moderator would be the person to curate “focus posts”, deciding which posts qualify (or possibly helping to create them outright).
The moderator will decide on the composition of these posts (e.g. breakdown by cause area).
There are other complex issues the moderator will influence: For example, while most of these new “focus posts” might be on object-level topics, some meta posts might appear. What qualifies is tricky to decide, and at the same time, gives a niche for the moderator to express their vision and skill.
This control by the moderator is a key aspect of “focus posts” (and ultimately a major change to the forum itself).
Note that this control has checks and balances. The moderator’s output and decisions are very visible work. Also, maybe later, additional features can be added that allow community input, such as voting that can promote (or demote) posts into focus posts. Finally, simple regular user discussions act as a check on moderators.
This change in the role of the moderator has additional effects:
Sometimes the role of moderators can seem thankless or low reward, yet the role is extremely important. Now, with this change, the moderator has dramatically more prestige, such as great access to a large group of talented senior EAs. The moderator has portfolio and well funded mission of promoting discussion in a highly visible place, as well as making the entire project of focus posts more effective. This permanently improves the role of the moderator, increasing talent flows for this role, and supporting health of the EA forum.
This new role and the focus posts can be a safeguard in periods when the Forum is entering noisy, difficult times with a lower supply of content, promoting strong writing and reducing imbalances in discussion.
Another way of looking at this: instead of seeing “focus posts” as a new prominent position for posts, you can see it as a vehicle to empower principled moderators.
I think both the current and past EA forum moderator are more than qualified, both in terms of subject matter knowledge, as well as virtue and judgement, for at least the control envisioned in this comment chain.
2: Greatly empower the EA forum moderator and change its role
This second point is really important. This project will greatly change the moderators role, increasing the prominence and even real world impact of the EA forum moderator.
The moderator would be the person to curate “focus posts”, deciding which posts qualify (or possibly helping to create them outright).
The moderator will decide on the composition of these posts (e.g. breakdown by cause area).
There are other complex issues the moderator will influence: For example, while most of these new “focus posts” might be on object-level topics, some meta posts might appear. What qualifies is tricky to decide, and at the same time, gives a niche for the moderator to express their vision and skill.
This control by the moderator is a key aspect of “focus posts” (and ultimately a major change to the forum itself).
Note that this control has checks and balances. The moderator’s output and decisions are very visible work. Also, maybe later, additional features can be added that allow community input, such as voting that can promote (or demote) posts into focus posts. Finally, simple regular user discussions act as a check on moderators.
This change in the role of the moderator has additional effects:
Sometimes the role of moderators can seem thankless or low reward, yet the role is extremely important. Now, with this change, the moderator has dramatically more prestige, such as great access to a large group of talented senior EAs. The moderator has portfolio and well funded mission of promoting discussion in a highly visible place, as well as making the entire project of focus posts more effective. This permanently improves the role of the moderator, increasing talent flows for this role, and supporting health of the EA forum.
This new role and the focus posts can be a safeguard in periods when the Forum is entering noisy, difficult times with a lower supply of content, promoting strong writing and reducing imbalances in discussion.
Another way of looking at this: instead of seeing “focus posts” as a new prominent position for posts, you can see it as a vehicle to empower principled moderators.
I think both the current and past EA forum moderator are more than qualified, both in terms of subject matter knowledge, as well as virtue and judgement, for at least the control envisioned in this comment chain.