I agree with some of the comments, but the success of being ranked high on Google seems good and legit which supports that the method could work. Please do share the click-through rates on the links!
I just have some caveats about the the article. Some have been named already so I’ll focus on your point about ′ leaving bread crumbs’. Naming EA (with a link to the landing page) and linking to the major organizations isn’t what I’d consider bread crumbs. How will it ‘prevent non-value aligned people from flooding the movement’? The Chronicle of Philanthropy starts their update about your piece with ‘The Wounded Warrior Project scandal should encourage more donors to adopt the tenets of “effective altruism”’. That makes it pretty clear what message the article sending.
I’d rather see just a link to GiveWell or so. People who are dedicated enough will pick up the bread crumbs.
I hear you about that concern! It was actually a topic of conversation on earlier articles that I wrote.
The challenge is how to attract value-aligned people without attracting non-value aligned people. Trade-offs like this are always tough, and it will always be a fuzzy line, of course. The key seems to be to avoid highlighting EA strongly, but instead having a paragraph deep in the article with a mention of EA, along with links to EA charities.
This is what we’re going with currently, and we’ll see how it works out.
Hmmm does that mean you’re going to keep the current approach? As it stands it seems to ‘encourage more donors to adopt the tenets of “effective altruism”’. That’s not in accordance with what you’re trying to do. Just giving you a data point that to me it’s not subtle at all. Even if it’s one paragraph it’s about as close as you can get to directly promoting EA in a news article about another topic. And people seem to sense that. Also, if someone disliked the article or the method of spreading the word I’m pretty sure that would reflect badly on EA as a result. The paragraph implies that the article is written by someone who identifies as an EA.
I think that you can be a lot more subtle and the right people will still find EA. A link to GiveWell should be enough.
I agree with some of the comments, but the success of being ranked high on Google seems good and legit which supports that the method could work. Please do share the click-through rates on the links!
I just have some caveats about the the article. Some have been named already so I’ll focus on your point about ′ leaving bread crumbs’. Naming EA (with a link to the landing page) and linking to the major organizations isn’t what I’d consider bread crumbs. How will it ‘prevent non-value aligned people from flooding the movement’? The Chronicle of Philanthropy starts their update about your piece with ‘The Wounded Warrior Project scandal should encourage more donors to adopt the tenets of “effective altruism”’. That makes it pretty clear what message the article sending.
I’d rather see just a link to GiveWell or so. People who are dedicated enough will pick up the bread crumbs.
I hear you about that concern! It was actually a topic of conversation on earlier articles that I wrote.
The challenge is how to attract value-aligned people without attracting non-value aligned people. Trade-offs like this are always tough, and it will always be a fuzzy line, of course. The key seems to be to avoid highlighting EA strongly, but instead having a paragraph deep in the article with a mention of EA, along with links to EA charities.
This is what we’re going with currently, and we’ll see how it works out.
Hmmm does that mean you’re going to keep the current approach? As it stands it seems to ‘encourage more donors to adopt the tenets of “effective altruism”’. That’s not in accordance with what you’re trying to do. Just giving you a data point that to me it’s not subtle at all. Even if it’s one paragraph it’s about as close as you can get to directly promoting EA in a news article about another topic. And people seem to sense that. Also, if someone disliked the article or the method of spreading the word I’m pretty sure that would reflect badly on EA as a result. The paragraph implies that the article is written by someone who identifies as an EA.
I think that you can be a lot more subtle and the right people will still find EA. A link to GiveWell should be enough.
Yeah, tough balance to draw indeed. You know, I’ll check to see what Kerry Vaughn thinks, I really appreciate his thoughtful approach to this matter.
Edit: double comment