Iâve made it official CEA policy that we always use lower case. (Edit: If you see âEffective Altruismâ on one of our posts or websites in a place where it shouldnât be capitalized, please let me know so I can fix it.)
My reasoning:
Like others have said here, I think of EA as a philosophy/âsystem of thought, along the lines of âliberalismâ or âutilitarianismâ, rather than as a formalized religion or political institution, like âChristianityâ or âthe Democratic Partyâ.
I agree that there are specific values and practices that are inherent to EA, but itâs difficult to point to any one thing that would âqualifyâ a person or organization as officially being âpart of EAâ vs. not.
There is such a thing as a âregistered Democratâ, but âregistered EA community memberâ isnât really a thing. You can set up a profile on the EA Hub, but so can literally anyone; this doesnât confer any official privileges.
See why I donât like the term âeffective altruistâ (including my reply to Michael Airdâs comment, which pulls out the difference between that question and the capitalization question).
Regarding institutions, I consider many organizations to be some degree of âEA-alignedâ even if they have nothing whatsoever to do with our movement. I think of this alignment as a spectrum, rather than a binary thing where an org does or doesnât âcountâ.
For example, consider a global health charity that gets serious consideration from GiveWell but doesnât quite pass the bar to be a âStandout Charityâ. Do the charityâs employees have âEA jobsâ?
Their work is aligned with EAâs mission, and presumably involves what most people in EA would consider a âpromising cause areaâ. Given this, I see the âEA jobsâ question as beside the point.
In your example, of the person who uses Charity Navigator, I still think the binary distinction isnât helpful:
Is this person trying to do more good? Yes.
Is the strategy theyâre using likely to help them do substantially more good than they would otherwise? Probably not.
Is their personal philosophy generally in line with EA? Impossible to tell from this single statement.
Would they fit in well at an EA meetup? Depends on how open they are to considering different ideas.
Should they be hired for a role at a very EA-aligned organization? Depends on their skills and other elements of fit; their confusion about overhead is just one small fact about them. I wouldnât want them writing curricula about effective giving, but they might be a great accountant.
...and so on.
***
I got off-topic at the end there, but to return to my main point:
I think that capitalizing âeffective altruismâ makes it seem more like a binary thing (you count or you donât, you have this identity or you donât) and less like a spectrum (many people are aligned with EA to some degree, but no one is a perfect exemplar of every EA principle). But given how complicated the above questions can get, I think âspectrumâ is a better fit than âbinaryâ.
Thanks for writing this! I used to write it as Effective Altruism, and once I noticed that a lot of articles and people refer to it in lowercase, I switched to using that. But it wasnât that clear to me why I should be using lowercase until you wrote this.
Anyway, I just noticed now that on the effectivealtruism.org website, the navigation bar says âIntroduction to Effective Altruismâ, and also the parts âArticles > Introduction to Effective Altruismâ, the title of that post, and the link to that post on the homepage, under âReadingâ. That is probably worth changing then to be consistent with CEAâs policy.
It might also be worth it to edit the logo on that website to say âEffective altruismâ or âeffective altruismâ, for consistency. This would take a bit more work, and isnât that high priority probably, but I thought Iâd suggest it.
Also, a very minor noteâthe website seems to switch between title case and sentence case in a few instances. Ideally it would be more consistent. I assume sentence case is better, which is what 80,000 Hours uses.
Anyway, I just noticed now that on the effectivealtruism.org website, the navigation bar says âIntroduction to Effective Altruismâ, and also the parts âArticles > Introduction to Effective Altruismâ, the title of that post, and the link to that post on the homepage, under âReadingâ.
I think the only inconsistency I see is the capitalization of âeffective altruismâ in the navigation bar. The âIntroduction to Effective Altruismâ article is capitalized simply because all the articles in that section use title case. In any case, I agree with the overall point that it makes sense to make sure capitalization is consistent throughout the site (and I personally agree it should not be capitalized).
Yeah I realize now itâs capitalized probably because the article and multiple other pages are in title case rather than sentence case. I guess itâs okay then to keep the article title the same.
Given that the navigation bar text refers to an article with a capitalized title, I think its current capitalization is correct and consistent. Itâs possible that âactionâ in âTake actionâ should be capitalized, though; Iâll give that some thought.
Iâve made it official CEA policy that we always use lower case. (Edit: If you see âEffective Altruismâ on one of our posts or websites in a place where it shouldnât be capitalized, please let me know so I can fix it.)
My reasoning:
Like others have said here, I think of EA as a philosophy/âsystem of thought, along the lines of âliberalismâ or âutilitarianismâ, rather than as a formalized religion or political institution, like âChristianityâ or âthe Democratic Partyâ.
I agree that there are specific values and practices that are inherent to EA, but itâs difficult to point to any one thing that would âqualifyâ a person or organization as officially being âpart of EAâ vs. not.
There is such a thing as a âregistered Democratâ, but âregistered EA community memberâ isnât really a thing. You can set up a profile on the EA Hub, but so can literally anyone; this doesnât confer any official privileges.
See why I donât like the term âeffective altruistâ (including my reply to Michael Airdâs comment, which pulls out the difference between that question and the capitalization question).
Regarding institutions, I consider many organizations to be some degree of âEA-alignedâ even if they have nothing whatsoever to do with our movement. I think of this alignment as a spectrum, rather than a binary thing where an org does or doesnât âcountâ.
For example, consider a global health charity that gets serious consideration from GiveWell but doesnât quite pass the bar to be a âStandout Charityâ. Do the charityâs employees have âEA jobsâ?
Their work is aligned with EAâs mission, and presumably involves what most people in EA would consider a âpromising cause areaâ. Given this, I see the âEA jobsâ question as beside the point.
In your example, of the person who uses Charity Navigator, I still think the binary distinction isnât helpful:
Is this person trying to do more good? Yes.
Is the strategy theyâre using likely to help them do substantially more good than they would otherwise? Probably not.
Is their personal philosophy generally in line with EA? Impossible to tell from this single statement.
Would they fit in well at an EA meetup? Depends on how open they are to considering different ideas.
Should they be hired for a role at a very EA-aligned organization? Depends on their skills and other elements of fit; their confusion about overhead is just one small fact about them. I wouldnât want them writing curricula about effective giving, but they might be a great accountant.
...and so on.
***
I got off-topic at the end there, but to return to my main point:
I think that capitalizing âeffective altruismâ makes it seem more like a binary thing (you count or you donât, you have this identity or you donât) and less like a spectrum (many people are aligned with EA to some degree, but no one is a perfect exemplar of every EA principle). But given how complicated the above questions can get, I think âspectrumâ is a better fit than âbinaryâ.
Thanks for writing this! I used to write it as Effective Altruism, and once I noticed that a lot of articles and people refer to it in lowercase, I switched to using that. But it wasnât that clear to me why I should be using lowercase until you wrote this.
Anyway, I just noticed now that on the effectivealtruism.org website, the navigation bar says âIntroduction to Effective Altruismâ, and also the parts âArticles > Introduction to Effective Altruismâ, the title of that post, and the link to that post on the homepage, under âReadingâ. That is probably worth changing then to be consistent with CEAâs policy.
It might also be worth it to edit the logo on that website to say âEffective altruismâ or âeffective altruismâ, for consistency. This would take a bit more work, and isnât that high priority probably, but I thought Iâd suggest it.
Also, a very minor noteâthe website seems to switch between title case and sentence case in a few instances. Ideally it would be more consistent. I assume sentence case is better, which is what 80,000 Hours uses.
I think the only inconsistency I see is the capitalization of âeffective altruismâ in the navigation bar. The âIntroduction to Effective Altruismâ article is capitalized simply because all the articles in that section use title case. In any case, I agree with the overall point that it makes sense to make sure capitalization is consistent throughout the site (and I personally agree it should not be capitalized).
Yeah I realize now itâs capitalized probably because the article and multiple other pages are in title case rather than sentence case. I guess itâs okay then to keep the article title the same.
Given that the navigation bar text refers to an article with a capitalized title, I think its current capitalization is correct and consistent. Itâs possible that âactionâ in âTake actionâ should be capitalized, though; Iâll give that some thought.
Yeah, title case or proper case is common for page titles, article titles and headings (generally H1, H2, and often even H3).