This makes sense—seems like a good thing to think about.
One other point you didn’t mention is that by picking another name, it reduces brand risks for EA, and that means you can act a bit more independently. (E.g. once a local group ran an event that got picked up by national newspapers.)
You can also make your group name about something more specific. Another problem of effective altruism is that it’s broad and abstract which makes it hard to explain.
For instance, if you want your group to be practical and aimed at students, picking something about careers / finding a job can be very appealing. (Though this wouldn’t be a good choice if you wanted to be more niche and intellectual.) This was one of the reasons why we picked GWWC and 80k as names in the early days, rather than leading with effective altruism.
The direct translations of Effective Altruism can sound a bit forced. The dutch “Effectief Altruïsme” is a case in point. This can make you seem a bit “out of touch”. We checked with German and Spanish EA’s and they confirm that the direct translations sound rather awkward in their native tongue (a Polish EA we talked to have said that the name actually sounds really positive in Polish, so this point may not be relevant in all languages).
Agree! I write a bit more about this topic here, and talk about how the first Chinese translation wasn’t ideal.
This was one of the reasons why we picked GWWC and 80k as names in the early days, rather than leading with effective altruism.
I was curious about what you meant by this? I recall the term ‘Effective Altruism’ not being determined until 2011 or 2012, long after the names ‘GWWC’ and ’80k’ were chosen.
This makes sense—seems like a good thing to think about.
One other point you didn’t mention is that by picking another name, it reduces brand risks for EA, and that means you can act a bit more independently. (E.g. once a local group ran an event that got picked up by national newspapers.)
You can also make your group name about something more specific. Another problem of effective altruism is that it’s broad and abstract which makes it hard to explain.
For instance, if you want your group to be practical and aimed at students, picking something about careers / finding a job can be very appealing. (Though this wouldn’t be a good choice if you wanted to be more niche and intellectual.) This was one of the reasons why we picked GWWC and 80k as names in the early days, rather than leading with effective altruism.
Agree! I write a bit more about this topic here, and talk about how the first Chinese translation wasn’t ideal.
I was curious about what you meant by this? I recall the term ‘Effective Altruism’ not being determined until 2011 or 2012, long after the names ‘GWWC’ and ’80k’ were chosen.
That’s true, but we considered switching at several points later on (and the local groups did in fact switch).