I’m busy with EAG prep, so I can’t respond properly right now, but I wanted to note that I think the comment thread above (Guy’s original comment + Joshua’s) doesn’t quite capture how I’m thinking about CEA’s relationship to the community or to representativeness, though I can see why you’re taking these things from what I wrote.
The quote above is about who should decide how CEA is governed (note—it’s not even about who should govern CEA, it’s about who should decide the right governance structure). I still think that the board is best placed to do this, and it is their legal prerogative. I think that they should probably decide that there is more community governance/a slightly broader set of perspectives on CEA’s governance (but I also think that the perspective of the current board is very helpful, and I don’t think I would change it massively, and I’d regret losing the input of everyone on the current board).
Conor draws out of this the implication that a small elite group can judge impact better than the community. I agree with some versions of this and not others.
I don’t think that CEA staff have all of the answers here. We frequently ask other community members for their advice and input on many questions here.
I do think that there are some community members (at CEA, but also at other organizations) whose judgement I trust significantly more than the average forum user on questions about assessing our impact. This is usually at least in part because they have thought seriously about such questions for a long while. They’re not infallible.
I am coming around to the view that we should now be investing more in evaluations, including sharing more publicly. I don’t think that was the right call for the last ~2 years, but I think we might be at a stage where we should focus on it more. I expect that if we share more public evaluations, the community will share useful perspectives.
We are really keen to hear feedback from the community about our programs, and feed that into our understanding. E.g. we do surveys at the end of each EAG, review all of the answers, and have that directly feed into our plans for subsequent events.
Then we move onto (paraphrasing very slightly) “CEA clearly aren’t trying to be representative of the movement”. I think that “representative” could mean lots of things here, and again I agree with some versions but not others:
It could be something like “CEA is not doing EAG admissions so as to be a representative cross section of everyone in the movement”. If you take this interpretation, there’s then a question of who is “in the movement”.
If you take a broad view—e.g. everyone who’s heard of EA or who has identified with it on some level—I think it’s true that we’re not trying to be representative in this way.
If you take a more narrow view—e.g. people who have thought really carefully about EA ideas and are taking significant action on that basis—I think that we end up being reasonably representative (and are in part aiming to be representative (alongside goals like admitting people who would benefit from the event, and thinking about who will contribute to the event)).
Another thing that this often refers to is cause area representativeness. For EAG content and admissions, and EA.org content, and all other CEA programs, I do want us to accurately represent what the EA community is. I hope to share more on what this means to us soon. (I think there’s a lot to be unpacked about what exactly it means to accurately represent EA.)
Probably some other interpretations that I’m missing.
I do think that it’s a good attitude to view being rejected from EAG as “rejection by one specific organisation”, or maybe even as “one organisation saying that they don’t think you’re a good fit for this event right now” (when we might still think you’re a good fit for EAGx or whatever, or might be a good fit later).
Hi,
I upvoted because I appreciate that you took the time to give a detailed answer.
I’m going to reply more thoroughly, but for now I’ll highlight this:
Then we move onto (paraphrasing very slightly) “CEA clearly aren’t trying to be representative of the movement”. I think that “representative” could mean lots of things here, and again I agree with some versions but not others:
By this I’m referring to the decision-makers in CEA being representative of the community. Not participants of EA events.
I still don’t know how exactly you choose participants, and I think the problem there is not necessarily the way you choose, but the fact that nobody seems to know what it is. But this is way less important to me than the general decision-making and transparency in CEA.
Thanks, and to clarify, by decision-makers, do you mean mostly the board or mostly staff? And do you want them to be representative on particular dimensions? Or maybe chosen by a representative process like elections? I expect that we disagree on what the right structure is, but still interested to understand your view.
I’m busy with EAG prep, so I can’t respond properly right now, but I wanted to note that I think the comment thread above (Guy’s original comment + Joshua’s) doesn’t quite capture how I’m thinking about CEA’s relationship to the community or to representativeness, though I can see why you’re taking these things from what I wrote.
Coming back to pay off this IOU.
Some points:
The quote above is about who should decide how CEA is governed (note—it’s not even about who should govern CEA, it’s about who should decide the right governance structure). I still think that the board is best placed to do this, and it is their legal prerogative. I think that they should probably decide that there is more community governance/a slightly broader set of perspectives on CEA’s governance (but I also think that the perspective of the current board is very helpful, and I don’t think I would change it massively, and I’d regret losing the input of everyone on the current board).
Conor draws out of this the implication that a small elite group can judge impact better than the community. I agree with some versions of this and not others.
I don’t think that CEA staff have all of the answers here. We frequently ask other community members for their advice and input on many questions here.
I do think that there are some community members (at CEA, but also at other organizations) whose judgement I trust significantly more than the average forum user on questions about assessing our impact. This is usually at least in part because they have thought seriously about such questions for a long while. They’re not infallible.
I am coming around to the view that we should now be investing more in evaluations, including sharing more publicly. I don’t think that was the right call for the last ~2 years, but I think we might be at a stage where we should focus on it more. I expect that if we share more public evaluations, the community will share useful perspectives.
We are really keen to hear feedback from the community about our programs, and feed that into our understanding. E.g. we do surveys at the end of each EAG, review all of the answers, and have that directly feed into our plans for subsequent events.
Then we move onto (paraphrasing very slightly) “CEA clearly aren’t trying to be representative of the movement”. I think that “representative” could mean lots of things here, and again I agree with some versions but not others:
It could be something like “CEA is not doing EAG admissions so as to be a representative cross section of everyone in the movement”. If you take this interpretation, there’s then a question of who is “in the movement”.
If you take a broad view—e.g. everyone who’s heard of EA or who has identified with it on some level—I think it’s true that we’re not trying to be representative in this way.
If you take a more narrow view—e.g. people who have thought really carefully about EA ideas and are taking significant action on that basis—I think that we end up being reasonably representative (and are in part aiming to be representative (alongside goals like admitting people who would benefit from the event, and thinking about who will contribute to the event)).
Another thing that this often refers to is cause area representativeness. For EAG content and admissions, and EA.org content, and all other CEA programs, I do want us to accurately represent what the EA community is. I hope to share more on what this means to us soon. (I think there’s a lot to be unpacked about what exactly it means to accurately represent EA.)
Probably some other interpretations that I’m missing.
I do think that it’s a good attitude to view being rejected from EAG as “rejection by one specific organisation”, or maybe even as “one organisation saying that they don’t think you’re a good fit for this event right now” (when we might still think you’re a good fit for EAGx or whatever, or might be a good fit later).
Hi, I upvoted because I appreciate that you took the time to give a detailed answer. I’m going to reply more thoroughly, but for now I’ll highlight this:
By this I’m referring to the decision-makers in CEA being representative of the community. Not participants of EA events.
I still don’t know how exactly you choose participants, and I think the problem there is not necessarily the way you choose, but the fact that nobody seems to know what it is. But this is way less important to me than the general decision-making and transparency in CEA.
Thanks, and to clarify, by decision-makers, do you mean mostly the board or mostly staff? And do you want them to be representative on particular dimensions? Or maybe chosen by a representative process like elections? I expect that we disagree on what the right structure is, but still interested to understand your view.
Thanks for saying this!
I’ll be happy to hear what you think when you have the time.