RE outlier—Do you mean an outlier in that there are more admin hours put in than other places?
I don’t think that is true, at least from my impression of a couple other places, but this is a weak impression.
I would make the case that we probably don’t want to compare the Forum to most other online communities, because unlike in other places, people are writing & sharing substantive research and trying to, in some sense, do work. Of course, there is a community / social element to it as well, but I think there is a case to see the Forum as more than just that. As a result, I think it’s okay for the mod team to be an outlier.
I’ll also say that in general, I believe CEA as an organization undervalues / underinvests in infrastructural investments for the EA movement and community (e.g. the Groups team, Events team and Community health had been chronically understaffed until early 2022. The Forum only had ~3 FTE until 2021 and only had capacity to maintain rather than build new features. I’d argue the Community Health team is still very understaffed relative to their remit.)
Clarification: I think they underinvest in staff specifically, and sometimes overinvest in specific programs (e.g. conference spend in 2022, maybe the university groups program from 2021-2022). But overall I think they just underinvest in these things across the board, despite having had the capacity to raise more funds / hire more.
If they were unable to raise more funds (which I’m very skeptical of since it appears they haven’t actively fundraised non-OP funders), then I’d have wanted them to scale down to have fewer projects, and put more resources into fewer programs.
RE outlier—Do you mean an outlier in that there are more admin hours put in than other places?
I don’t think that is true, at least from my impression of a couple other places, but this is a weak impression.
I would make the case that we probably don’t want to compare the Forum to most other online communities, because unlike in other places, people are writing & sharing substantive research and trying to, in some sense, do work. Of course, there is a community / social element to it as well, but I think there is a case to see the Forum as more than just that. As a result, I think it’s okay for the mod team to be an outlier.
I’ll also say that in general, I believe CEA as an organization undervalues / underinvests in infrastructural investments for the EA movement and community (e.g. the Groups team, Events team and Community health had been chronically understaffed until early 2022. The Forum only had ~3 FTE until 2021 and only had capacity to maintain rather than build new features. I’d argue the Community Health team is still very understaffed relative to their remit.)
What do you think CEA over-invests in? If you take away Online, Groups, Events and CH as all undervalued there’s not much of CEA left.
Clarification: I think they underinvest in staff specifically, and sometimes overinvest in specific programs (e.g. conference spend in 2022, maybe the university groups program from 2021-2022). But overall I think they just underinvest in these things across the board, despite having had the capacity to raise more funds / hire more.
If they were unable to raise more funds (which I’m very skeptical of since it appears they haven’t actively fundraised non-OP funders), then I’d have wanted them to scale down to have fewer projects, and put more resources into fewer programs.