The OP suggests that Claire’s position is unusual because:
“While it is common for funders to serve on boards, it is not necessarily best practice.”
Not because Wytham Abbey was a poor purchase.
The OP says: “Claire Zabel oversees significant grant-making to EVF organizations through her role at Open Phil, some of which have come under fire. While it is common for funders to serve on boards, it is not necessarily best practice.”
I interpret this as saying Claire should be removed because ‘funders serving on boards is not necessarily best practice’, and also because the Wytham Abbey purchase was controversial and/or bad.
I think it’s bad to cite the Abbey as a reason for a decision like this, while maintaining ambiguity about whether you think the purchase was a bad idea vs. merely controversial. I also think it would be unhealthy for EA to go down the road of making decisions heavily based on what seems controversial, without saying anything about whether you think the idea was also bad.
Social environments with a lot of “obviously X is suspect, everyone knows that, no need for me to say why I think that” talk tend to fall into a lot of deference cascades and miasma-based bad reputations. (Things that are perceived as bad largely because other people keep reporting that they think others perceive the thing as bad.)
it seems to me that you’ve used this to re-open the WA discussion here rather than discuss whether EVF should consider changing the composition/structure of its boards, and what the merits of that would be
If Wytham Abbey is going to be cited as one of the reasons to remove people from boards (as indeed it has been here), then it needs to be OK for people to say why they agree or disagree with that call.
(Which is also part of why it’s helpful to say specifically what you think we should take away from the abbey case for this decision, rather than just fuzzily saying the decision has “come under fire”. Many good ideas inspire disagreement! If you think this was a bad idea, then just say so, and ideally gesture at why you think so.)
For context: I was already planning to share Edward’s comment somewhere, since I liked the analysis (similar to one he previously posted during the abbey discussion), and it wasn’t available on the public internet. (And he’d given me permission to cross-post it.)
But I’ve been busy and hadn’t gotten around to posting Edward’s thing anywhere, hence me posting it here. If it already existed somewhere linkable, then I’d have just posted a link here instead.
Yeah I can see why it does come across in the way that you interpreted, and I think my original comment was a bit more combative than I intended as well, so please accept my apologies for that. Nevertheless, I think the more productive conversation to be had is still about how the EVF board works, and not the object-level debate around Wytham Abbey—though I did appreciate Edward’s take on it, so thank you for sharing it!
I think the question that’s important to me is this. Assume the community comes to a consensus that some course of action was bad and that the board member responsible should step down. The best information that we have atm is that there wouldn’t be a means to actually put this into effect beside social pressure (which I grant is a very strong force). Or if a board member wanted to step down for some other reason, family or care responsibilities for instance, who gets to decide their replacement? But I totally understand if that’s not the topic you think is most important to discuss, and thank you for engaging with me :)
The OP says: “Claire Zabel oversees significant grant-making to EVF organizations through her role at Open Phil, some of which have come under fire. While it is common for funders to serve on boards, it is not necessarily best practice.”
I interpret this as saying Claire should be removed because ‘funders serving on boards is not necessarily best practice’, and also because the Wytham Abbey purchase was controversial and/or bad.
I think it’s bad to cite the Abbey as a reason for a decision like this, while maintaining ambiguity about whether you think the purchase was a bad idea vs. merely controversial. I also think it would be unhealthy for EA to go down the road of making decisions heavily based on what seems controversial, without saying anything about whether you think the idea was also bad.
Social environments with a lot of “obviously X is suspect, everyone knows that, no need for me to say why I think that” talk tend to fall into a lot of deference cascades and miasma-based bad reputations. (Things that are perceived as bad largely because other people keep reporting that they think others perceive the thing as bad.)
If Wytham Abbey is going to be cited as one of the reasons to remove people from boards (as indeed it has been here), then it needs to be OK for people to say why they agree or disagree with that call.
(Which is also part of why it’s helpful to say specifically what you think we should take away from the abbey case for this decision, rather than just fuzzily saying the decision has “come under fire”. Many good ideas inspire disagreement! If you think this was a bad idea, then just say so, and ideally gesture at why you think so.)
For context: I was already planning to share Edward’s comment somewhere, since I liked the analysis (similar to one he previously posted during the abbey discussion), and it wasn’t available on the public internet. (And he’d given me permission to cross-post it.)
But I’ve been busy and hadn’t gotten around to posting Edward’s thing anywhere, hence me posting it here. If it already existed somewhere linkable, then I’d have just posted a link here instead.
Yeah I can see why it does come across in the way that you interpreted, and I think my original comment was a bit more combative than I intended as well, so please accept my apologies for that. Nevertheless, I think the more productive conversation to be had is still about how the EVF board works, and not the object-level debate around Wytham Abbey—though I did appreciate Edward’s take on it, so thank you for sharing it!
I think the question that’s important to me is this. Assume the community comes to a consensus that some course of action was bad and that the board member responsible should step down. The best information that we have atm is that there wouldn’t be a means to actually put this into effect beside social pressure (which I grant is a very strong force). Or if a board member wanted to step down for some other reason, family or care responsibilities for instance, who gets to decide their replacement? But I totally understand if that’s not the topic you think is most important to discuss, and thank you for engaging with me :)