I think a crucial difference is whether you perceive the activities as offering a service or as taking responsibility for the provision of that service. e.g. I view the CEA community health team as offering “hey, we’d like to help keep the community healthy”. In that context it doesn’t make that much sense to be annoyed that they haven’t solved the problem of “people feeling uncomfortable posting on the forum”—they’re out there trying to do some thing useful, they haven’t promised to fix everything.
As it happens, I don’t think EA is that centralised. But perhaps that’s a red herring and the real question is whether people think that some EA orgs or people have responsibility for certain community-wide things.
CEA/EV can prevent people from coming to the most important in-person meetups (EAG) and from participating in the most important EA online space (the EA Forum). In that sense, they’re not just offering services, but have a lot of power. (That power also manifests itself in many other ways, including ways that are more directly relevant to the subject of the post.) And with that power comes responsibility.
Yes, I agree that CEA has a responsibility to not abuse the social power that comes from controlling important spaces. I don’t agree that they have a general responsibility for membership of the community or something.
I think a crucial difference is whether you perceive the activities as offering a service or as taking responsibility for the provision of that service. e.g. I view the CEA community health team as offering “hey, we’d like to help keep the community healthy”. In that context it doesn’t make that much sense to be annoyed that they haven’t solved the problem of “people feeling uncomfortable posting on the forum”—they’re out there trying to do some thing useful, they haven’t promised to fix everything.
As it happens, I don’t think EA is that centralised. But perhaps that’s a red herring and the real question is whether people think that some EA orgs or people have responsibility for certain community-wide things.
CEA/EV can prevent people from coming to the most important in-person meetups (EAG) and from participating in the most important EA online space (the EA Forum). In that sense, they’re not just offering services, but have a lot of power. (That power also manifests itself in many other ways, including ways that are more directly relevant to the subject of the post.) And with that power comes responsibility.
Yes, I agree that CEA has a responsibility to not abuse the social power that comes from controlling important spaces. I don’t agree that they have a general responsibility for membership of the community or something.