I think it’s reasonable for a donor to decide where to donate based on publicly available data and to share their conclusions with others. Michael disclosed the scope and limitations of his analysis, and referred to other funders having made different decisions. The implied reader of the post is pretty sophisticated and would be expected to know that these funders may have access to information on initiatives that haven’t been/can’t be publicly discussed.
While I appreciate why orgs may not want to release public information on all initiatives, the unavoidable consequence of that decision is that small/medium donors are not in a position to consider those initiatives when deciding whether to donate. Moreover, I think Open Phil et al. are capable of adjusting their own donation patterns in consideration of the fact that some orgs’ ability to fundraise from the broader EA & AIS communities is impaired by their need for unusually-low-for-EA levels of public transparency.
“Run posts by orgs” is ordinarily a good practice, at least where you are conducting a deep dive into some issue on which one might expect significant information to be disclosed. Here, it seems reasonable to assume that orgs will have made a conscious decision about what general information they want to share with would-be small/medium donors. So there isn’t much reason to expect that an inquiry (along with notice that the author is planning to publish on-Forum) would yield material additional information.[1] Against that, the costs of reaching out to ~28 orgs is not insignificant and would be a significant barrier to people authoring this kind of post. The post doesn’t seem to rely on significant non-public information, accuse anyone of misconduct, or have other characteristics that would make advance notice and comment particularly valuable.
Balancing all of that, I think the opportunity for orgs to respond to the post in comments was and is adequate here.
In contrast, when one is writing a deep dive on a narrower issue, the odds seem considerably higher that the organization has material information that isn’t published because of opportunity costs, lack of any reason to think there would be public interest, etc. But I’d expect most orgs’ basic fundraising ask to have been at least moderately deliberate.
Here, it seems reasonable to assume that orgs will have made a conscious decision about what general information they want to share with would-be small/medium donors. So there isn’t much reason to expect that an inquiry (along with notice that the author is planning to publish on-Forum) would yield material additional information.[1]
This seems quite false to me. Far from “isn’t much reason”, we already know that such an inquiry would have yielded additional information, because Malo almost definitely would have corrected Michael’s material misunderstanding about MIRI’s work.
Additionally, my experience of writing similar posts is that there are often many material small facts that small orgs haven’t disclosed but would happily explain in an email. Even basic facts like “what publications have you produced this year” would be impossible to determine otherwise. Small orgs just aren’t that strategic about what they disclose!
I think it’s reasonable for a donor to decide where to donate based on publicly available data and to share their conclusions with others. Michael disclosed the scope and limitations of his analysis, and referred to other funders having made different decisions. The implied reader of the post is pretty sophisticated and would be expected to know that these funders may have access to information on initiatives that haven’t been/can’t be publicly discussed.
While I appreciate why orgs may not want to release public information on all initiatives, the unavoidable consequence of that decision is that small/medium donors are not in a position to consider those initiatives when deciding whether to donate. Moreover, I think Open Phil et al. are capable of adjusting their own donation patterns in consideration of the fact that some orgs’ ability to fundraise from the broader EA & AIS communities is impaired by their need for unusually-low-for-EA levels of public transparency.
“Run posts by orgs” is ordinarily a good practice, at least where you are conducting a deep dive into some issue on which one might expect significant information to be disclosed. Here, it seems reasonable to assume that orgs will have made a conscious decision about what general information they want to share with would-be small/medium donors. So there isn’t much reason to expect that an inquiry (along with notice that the author is planning to publish on-Forum) would yield material additional information.[1] Against that, the costs of reaching out to ~28 orgs is not insignificant and would be a significant barrier to people authoring this kind of post. The post doesn’t seem to rely on significant non-public information, accuse anyone of misconduct, or have other characteristics that would make advance notice and comment particularly valuable.
Balancing all of that, I think the opportunity for orgs to respond to the post in comments was and is adequate here.
In contrast, when one is writing a deep dive on a narrower issue, the odds seem considerably higher that the organization has material information that isn’t published because of opportunity costs, lack of any reason to think there would be public interest, etc. But I’d expect most orgs’ basic fundraising ask to have been at least moderately deliberate.
This seems quite false to me. Far from “isn’t much reason”, we already know that such an inquiry would have yielded additional information, because Malo almost definitely would have corrected Michael’s material misunderstanding about MIRI’s work.
Additionally, my experience of writing similar posts is that there are often many material small facts that small orgs haven’t disclosed but would happily explain in an email. Even basic facts like “what publications have you produced this year” would be impossible to determine otherwise. Small orgs just aren’t that strategic about what they disclose!