When choosing the topics we would ideally cover on OWID, we aim to be quite broad in our approach. Our tagline is that we publish “research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems” and voluntarily apply a broad definition of the “world’s largest problems”. We don’t try to follow a specific framework or list of questions (compared to how 80,000 Hours defines the highest-priority problems).
But of course, even though we wish we could cover hundreds of important topics, we only have limited resources and must make choices regarding marginal prioritization. Our principles broadly follow EA’s ITN framework, although with a slightly adapted version of each concept.
- Importance: is the topic a big problem for the world? Does it kill people, generate suffering (physical or mental), or cause societal instability? Or, on the positive side, does it unlock potential progress for the world, or preserve something valuable?
- Tractability: is there enough quality data on this topic for us to cover it? Given that OWID’s mission consists of relying first and foremost on data to explain important issues, we need reliable, accurate, up-to-date data on a topic if we’re going to cover it.
- Neglectedness: is the topic accurately covered by other media, publications, or institutions? Do we often spot confusion or misconceptions about it online? Is there good data on a topic ready to be used somewhere, but it’s been ignored or misunderstood for lack of good visualizations and presentation?
In deciding how to prioritize our work, I’d say that importance and tractability are filters that make a topic “OWID material” or not. Neglectedness will typically lead us to prioritize something over the rest of our (very long) wishlist.
Thanks for the question, Kei!
When choosing the topics we would ideally cover on OWID, we aim to be quite broad in our approach. Our tagline is that we publish “research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems” and voluntarily apply a broad definition of the “world’s largest problems”. We don’t try to follow a specific framework or list of questions (compared to how 80,000 Hours defines the highest-priority problems).
But of course, even though we wish we could cover hundreds of important topics, we only have limited resources and must make choices regarding marginal prioritization. Our principles broadly follow EA’s ITN framework, although with a slightly adapted version of each concept.
- Importance: is the topic a big problem for the world? Does it kill people, generate suffering (physical or mental), or cause societal instability? Or, on the positive side, does it unlock potential progress for the world, or preserve something valuable?
- Tractability: is there enough quality data on this topic for us to cover it? Given that OWID’s mission consists of relying first and foremost on data to explain important issues, we need reliable, accurate, up-to-date data on a topic if we’re going to cover it.
- Neglectedness: is the topic accurately covered by other media, publications, or institutions? Do we often spot confusion or misconceptions about it online? Is there good data on a topic ready to be used somewhere, but it’s been ignored or misunderstood for lack of good visualizations and presentation?
In deciding how to prioritize our work, I’d say that importance and tractability are filters that make a topic “OWID material” or not. Neglectedness will typically lead us to prioritize something over the rest of our (very long) wishlist.