Feedback available for EA Forum drafts (suspended)
Update, 12/ā7/ā21: Given my departure from CEA, Iām no longer sharing feedback.
I recommend the EA Editing and Review group as another option!
If providing feedback to random Forum users sounds fun to you, and you want to take over for me, contact content@centreforeffectivealtruism.org to express your interest. Please include a description of your past writing/āediting experience. This was a widely-demanded service, so CEA might be interested in hiring someone to continue it (though Iām not certain about this).
Hello, Forum! This is Aaron, your friendly neighborhood moderator (and a content writer/āeditor at CEA).
Iām writing this to let you know that I offer a free service as part of my work for CEA: If you want someone to read your Forum post before you publish it, I will gladly do that.
My goal is to help people who are uncertain about an idea or draft by getting them to a point where they feel comfortable publishing a post. That said, youāre always welcome to run things by me even if youāre already sure you want to publish them.
Also, Iām not the only person doing this: the EA Editing and Review Facebook group has a community of volunteer editors, who will often be faster or have more relevant experience than me. (Though you can also just share with both of us!)
Services I offer
Commenting on an idea that hasnāt yet been written up, to suggest directions you could take or material you might want to read before you write a draft.
Making broad suggestions about major changes you could make, or pieces on related topics that Iād be excited to see.
Making minor suggestions about points or sentences that I found unclear.
I rarely have time for a full copyedit, but I may note typos I happen to see.
Sending your draft to other people who know more about the topic than I do, or otherwise seem like theyād give useful feedback.
Iāll ask for permission before I do this.
How to get help
Email me a shared document with a draft of your post.
Not a shared draft on the Forum or a Word Doc, please ā either a Google Doc or another online document that I can make comments on without having to save a separate draft. This makes the process much easier from my side.
Let me know when you need to hear back by.
Even if thereās no rush, it helps me to have a fake deadline I can add to my task-tracking system, so something like ātwo weeks from today, but you can extend that if you need toā is better than āwheneverā.
If I doubt the deadline will work with my schedule, I may say something like āitās more likely than not that I wonāt get to thisā.
Tell me what kind of feedback you want. For example:
āIām new to effective altruism, and Iām worried that Iām saying something obvious that will bore or annoy people who have more experience. Do you know of other posts that cover the same points?ā
āIām not sure this belongs on the Forum at all. What do you think?ā
āI think this post is almost perfect, and Iām not looking to make major changes, but Iād still like feedback on paragraphs #4 and #5.ā
Iāve already done this for many Forum users, including people whoād never posted before and people who have thousands of karma. Iām not the worldās greatest editor, but Iāve written and edited a lot of things for money over the years, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how to communicate EA ideas.
Feedback on my feedback
In November 2020, I reached out to the 70 people Iād worked with so far, to ask whether theyād been satisfied with the feedback I gave. From 39 responses, the average score was 8.3/ā10, and comments included:
āI think some of the most important traits to have for giving feedback on the EA Forum are friendliness and non-judgmentalness, and you definitely nail that.ā
āI appreciated your feedback a lot. I appreciated the push back you gave me on some of my ideas. It helped uncover some of the weak points in my argument.ā
āI appreciated how focused your feedback was. It was all actionable and concise.ā
āOverall, the feedback was really helpful. It was particularly valuable becauseāto meāthe essay you helped me on was really challenging.ā
āYou engaged with othersā comments in the doc, correctly inferring my actual meaning in the face of high-status misunderstanding.ā
āI really liked that you encouraged me to contact specific people directly.ā
āYou took too long to reply to my initial mail.ā (I did, in fact, take too long.)
Bonus: There is a Facebook group for people who want suggestions on EA writing ā whether or not itās related to the Forum. Iāve spoken to multiple people in the last month who have substantial professional editing experience and really want to see more content appear in that group. Go forth and publish!
- AnĀnouncĀing my retirement by (25 Nov 2021 13:55 UTC; 379 points)
- Things I Learned at the EA StuĀdent Summit by (27 Oct 2020 19:03 UTC; 148 points)
- How to use the Forum by (5 Sep 2018 17:22 UTC; 99 points)
- Notes on EA-reĀlated reĀsearch, writĀing, testĀing fit, learnĀing, and the Forum by (27 Mar 2021 9:52 UTC; 98 points)
- CEAās 2020 AnĀnual Review by (10 Dec 2020 23:45 UTC; 69 points)
- CEAās Plans for 2021 by (11 Dec 2020 0:27 UTC; 67 points)
- What posts you are planĀning on writĀing? by (24 Jul 2019 5:12 UTC; 60 points)
- What posts you are planĀning on writĀing? by (24 Jul 2019 5:12 UTC; 60 points)
- What posts you are planĀning on writĀing? by (24 Jul 2019 5:12 UTC; 60 points)
- What posts you are planĀning on writĀing? by (24 Jul 2019 5:12 UTC; 60 points)
- What posts you are planĀning on writĀing? by (24 Jul 2019 5:12 UTC; 60 points)
- MinĀiĀmalĀist axĀioloĀgies and posĀiĀtive lives by (13 Nov 2021 10:57 UTC; 56 points)
- CEAās 2019 AnĀnual Review by (23 Apr 2020 7:39 UTC; 38 points)
- What are some 1:1 meetĀings youād like to arĀrange, and how can peoĀple find you? by (18 Mar 2020 5:02 UTC; 35 points)
- Creative WritĀing ConĀtest: Now with more prizes! by (14 Oct 2021 7:12 UTC; 35 points)
- 's comment on The case against āEA cause arĀeasā by (22 Jul 2021 0:51 UTC; 31 points)
- EA FoĀrum Prize: WinĀners for NovemĀber 2019 by (16 Jan 2020 0:56 UTC; 26 points)
- 's comment on [Link] What opinions do you hold that you would be reĀlucĀtant to exĀpress in front of a group of effecĀtive alĀtruĀists? AnonyĀmous form. by (4 Oct 2019 23:42 UTC; 26 points)
- How we think about the Forum by (15 Oct 2019 16:24 UTC; 24 points)
- EA FoĀrum WritĀing WorkĀshop on Monday by (20 Dec 2020 16:18 UTC; 17 points)
- 's comment on April Foolās Day Is Very SeĀriĀous Business by (16 Mar 2020 23:15 UTC; 15 points)
- Notes on effecĀtive-alĀtruĀism-reĀlated reĀsearch, writĀing, testĀing fit, learnĀing, and the EA Forum by (LessWrong; 28 Mar 2021 23:43 UTC; 14 points)
- 's comment on The EA FoĀrum is a News Feed by (29 Jul 2019 20:16 UTC; 13 points)
- What (other) posts are you planĀning on writĀing? by (4 Apr 2020 6:18 UTC; 11 points)
- 's comment on Open Thread: SeptemĀber 2021 by (21 Sep 2021 21:31 UTC; 6 points)
- 's comment on A forĀmalĀizaĀtion of negelectness by (25 Aug 2021 5:57 UTC; 4 points)
- 's comment on Open Thread: Spring 2022 by (15 Nov 2021 15:18 UTC; 3 points)
- 's comment on Open and WelĀcome Thread: March 2021 by (10 Mar 2021 6:33 UTC; 3 points)
- 's comment on Ben CotĀtierās Quick takes by (10 Mar 2020 23:19 UTC; 2 points)
This seems like a really good idea to me, happy to hear you are doing this!
I think that if many people have similar issues, it could be useful to find an assistant from UpWork or similar to help you. There are some people who are reasonably inexpensive and could provide useful writing feedback (though not EA-specific feedback). I personally would be hesitant to use much of your time, but am more willing if much were outsourced (and likely happy to pay the relevant amount.)
Iām actually in the final stages of hiring a new copyeditor for CEA; Iām hoping to find someone who Iād trust to provide some of the types of feedback I mentioned above, which will increase our theoretical maximum capacity for review.
That said, I find giving feedback to be a much smaller drain on my energy than other parts of my job, and I think that Iām well short of the point where additional editing creates more strain than it makes up for in utility. For now, Iād recommend being less hesitant! (I may edit this post if the situation changes.)
That makes me really happy. I really would like to see more experimentation and use of delegation of delegate-able tasks around EA, kudos for setting that up.
Similarly, I am happy to review and leave comments on almost any post thatās related to animal welfare (I work as a researcher on animal welfare topics). You can email me at saulius at rethinkpriorities.org if you think that would be helpful for your post.
Thanks for offering this service! Iād like to share a draft/āidea with you (the second example in my comment here) but I donāt want to use my personal email since I want to keep my account anonymous. Is there a way I could get feedback from you without creating an anonymous email?
You could try sending a link to a Google Doc via OneTimeSecret.
Thank you! Iāll send you a link if/āwhen I get around to working on the draft :)
As a datapoint, this would have been highly useful to me before writing this: EA Mental Health Survey: Results and Analysis. Can you have a look at it regardless?
Interestingly, regardless of when you make the offer publicly, there is someone who will have published something at t-1, so I donāt feel too bad.
As I mentioned in the post, itās helpful if I know what I should be looking for. Is there any particular type of feedback that youāre interested in?