Since I view this as an important idea, I think it’s important to get the plan to the strongest point that it can be.
It’s also important not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Seems to me like people are always proposing volunteer-lead projects like this and most of them never get off the ground. Remember this is just a pilot.
I think this is the sort of project where if you do it badly, it might dissuade others from trying the same.
The empirical reality of the EA project landscape seems to be that EAs keep stumbling on the same project ideas over and over with little awareness of what has been proposed or attempted in the past. If this post goes like the typical project proposal post, nothing will come of it, it will soon be forgotten, and 6 months later someone will independently come up with a similar idea and write a similar post (which will meet a similar fate).
As a concrete example of this “same project ideas over and over with little awareness of what has been proposed or attempted in the past” thing, https://lets-fund.org is a fairly recent push in the “fund fledgling EA projects” area which seems to have a decent amount of momentum behind it relative to the typical volunteer-lead EA project. What are the important differences between Let’s Fund and what Jan is working on? I’m not sure. But Let’s Fund hasn’t hit the $75k target for their first project, even though it’s been ~5 months since their launch.
The EA Hotel is another recent push in the “fund fledgling EA projects” area which is struggling to fundraise. Again, loads of momentum relative to the typical grassroots EA project—they’ve bought a property and it’s full of EAs. What are the relative advantages & disadvantages of the EA Hotel, Let’s Fund, and Jan’s thing? How about compared with EA Funds? Again, I’m not sure. But I do wonder if we’d be better off with “more wood behind fewer arrows”, so to speak.
It’s also important not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Seems to me like people are always proposing volunteer-lead projects like this and most of them never get off the ground. Remember this is just a pilot.
The empirical reality of the EA project landscape seems to be that EAs keep stumbling on the same project ideas over and over with little awareness of what has been proposed or attempted in the past. If this post goes like the typical project proposal post, nothing will come of it, it will soon be forgotten, and 6 months later someone will independently come up with a similar idea and write a similar post (which will meet a similar fate).
As a concrete example of this “same project ideas over and over with little awareness of what has been proposed or attempted in the past” thing, https://lets-fund.org is a fairly recent push in the “fund fledgling EA projects” area which seems to have a decent amount of momentum behind it relative to the typical volunteer-lead EA project. What are the important differences between Let’s Fund and what Jan is working on? I’m not sure. But Let’s Fund hasn’t hit the $75k target for their first project, even though it’s been ~5 months since their launch.
The EA Hotel is another recent push in the “fund fledgling EA projects” area which is struggling to fundraise. Again, loads of momentum relative to the typical grassroots EA project—they’ve bought a property and it’s full of EAs. What are the relative advantages & disadvantages of the EA Hotel, Let’s Fund, and Jan’s thing? How about compared with EA Funds? Again, I’m not sure. But I do wonder if we’d be better off with “more wood behind fewer arrows”, so to speak.