I agree that there might be easier ways to solve some of the problems I raise. Perhaps there being someone responsible for posting the most relevant articles from the EA forum and elsewhere in the EAA Facebook group would be good. I’d consider donating someone to do that one day a week. There also already are newsletters and they encourage reading but not commenting or posting. And from the comment by JP Addison, it seems that in the long run this problem might be solved within the EA forum in a similar way that I proposed too so I am happy :)
Perhaps one place to start would be to start a conversation in the EAA Facebook group asking folks whether they read or post on the forum, why or why not, and if there is anything that would make the EA forum more useful for them. I would be happy to volunteer to start that conversation on Facebook if you think that would be helpful.
I felt some hesitation about this. I imagine that people will say that they don’t have time for that because they need to be doing their jobs of actually helping animals. And I sympathize with this position. I don’t want to make animal advocates feel like they have to do this other thing on top of their (often taxing) day job. So I guess I think it’s good to ask about this in the EAA Facebook as long as the question doesn’t make them feel this way.
Also, a lot of people in that group are being paid to do corporate or legislative campaigns, so most of their thoughts are about how to do that better. It’s not always a good idea to share those thoughts and tactics publicly, it’s better to share them within the Open Wing Alliance network. And while innovation on how to pursue corporate campaigns is great, I also think we need to experiment with other approaches. There already are conferences where animal charity employees are encouraged to give talks and listen to talks, maybe that partly solves problems that I wanted the forum to solve.
I’m now realizing that I’m holding two somewhat conflicting beliefs. First, I think that the EAA community as a whole should do more exploring of different approaches to help animals. And I think it’s important for people who are trying things in different countries to participate in that exploration as desk researchers like me lack context. On the other hand, if you take almost any particular employee of an animal charity, I don’t think it’s fair to ask them to do this because they are already doing a lot with their job. I guess that’s why I feel so awful whenever I need to ask busy EAA charity employees for input for my research, even though sometimes I really need it. And this likely limits my impact a lot. I felt that an EAA forum could go around some of these issues by making it so engaging to participate in these conversations that it doesn’t feel like work (because I think that the EA forum has done a good job at that). But yeah, I’m not sure it would work and there could be better ways to solve these issues.
Hey Saulius, Thanks for the thoughtful response! I definitely agree that we want to avoid making people feel pressured to engage with the forum, but I don’t think that negates your initial impulse to think about what can be done to make it as accessible as possible to people who want to use it (with zero pressure towards those who don’t). Personally, I enjoy using the forum. I don’t know many people who are working on similar things as I am IRL and so it is nice to meet others online. I also enjoy giving feedback to others when I feel qualified/inspired but since posts aren’t really directed at anyone in particular, I never feel pressured to when I’m busy/not knowledgeable about the subject/not inspired. When I think about improving the forum, I imagine doing it for those like me who would (after the improvement) find the forum actively helpful/fun.
I did post something on the Facebook group (and tried to make clear I was only interested in how the forum might be improved and not trying to persuade anyone to use it). I didn’t get a whole lot of responses but Jamie Harris, who moderates the group, said that they had considered cross-posting relevant forum posts themselves, but would prefer if authors did it themselves (I think to make sure the authors were okay with posting it). Jamie also provided a link and email address for people who specifically did not want their content cross-posted. Not sure on what future plans for that are, but Jamie would be the one to talk to about it.
I agree that there might be easier ways to solve some of the problems I raise. Perhaps there being someone responsible for posting the most relevant articles from the EA forum and elsewhere in the EAA Facebook group would be good. I’d consider donating someone to do that one day a week. There also already are newsletters and they encourage reading but not commenting or posting. And from the comment by JP Addison, it seems that in the long run this problem might be solved within the EA forum in a similar way that I proposed too so I am happy :)
I felt some hesitation about this. I imagine that people will say that they don’t have time for that because they need to be doing their jobs of actually helping animals. And I sympathize with this position. I don’t want to make animal advocates feel like they have to do this other thing on top of their (often taxing) day job. So I guess I think it’s good to ask about this in the EAA Facebook as long as the question doesn’t make them feel this way.
Also, a lot of people in that group are being paid to do corporate or legislative campaigns, so most of their thoughts are about how to do that better. It’s not always a good idea to share those thoughts and tactics publicly, it’s better to share them within the Open Wing Alliance network. And while innovation on how to pursue corporate campaigns is great, I also think we need to experiment with other approaches. There already are conferences where animal charity employees are encouraged to give talks and listen to talks, maybe that partly solves problems that I wanted the forum to solve.
I’m now realizing that I’m holding two somewhat conflicting beliefs. First, I think that the EAA community as a whole should do more exploring of different approaches to help animals. And I think it’s important for people who are trying things in different countries to participate in that exploration as desk researchers like me lack context. On the other hand, if you take almost any particular employee of an animal charity, I don’t think it’s fair to ask them to do this because they are already doing a lot with their job. I guess that’s why I feel so awful whenever I need to ask busy EAA charity employees for input for my research, even though sometimes I really need it. And this likely limits my impact a lot. I felt that an EAA forum could go around some of these issues by making it so engaging to participate in these conversations that it doesn’t feel like work (because I think that the EA forum has done a good job at that). But yeah, I’m not sure it would work and there could be better ways to solve these issues.
Hey Saulius, Thanks for the thoughtful response! I definitely agree that we want to avoid making people feel pressured to engage with the forum, but I don’t think that negates your initial impulse to think about what can be done to make it as accessible as possible to people who want to use it (with zero pressure towards those who don’t). Personally, I enjoy using the forum. I don’t know many people who are working on similar things as I am IRL and so it is nice to meet others online. I also enjoy giving feedback to others when I feel qualified/inspired but since posts aren’t really directed at anyone in particular, I never feel pressured to when I’m busy/not knowledgeable about the subject/not inspired. When I think about improving the forum, I imagine doing it for those like me who would (after the improvement) find the forum actively helpful/fun.
I did post something on the Facebook group (and tried to make clear I was only interested in how the forum might be improved and not trying to persuade anyone to use it). I didn’t get a whole lot of responses but Jamie Harris, who moderates the group, said that they had considered cross-posting relevant forum posts themselves, but would prefer if authors did it themselves (I think to make sure the authors were okay with posting it). Jamie also provided a link and email address for people who specifically did not want their content cross-posted. Not sure on what future plans for that are, but Jamie would be the one to talk to about it.