Apologies for the snarky language, but I did not mean to disparage the criticisms in the slightest. I think they are quite fine as they are, and do add value (80% confidence). I’m just pointing out that people frequently say there is no scrutiny of OP while engaging in an explicit act of scrutiny.
It’s very true that big philanthropies are surprisingly bad at giving reasons for their grants publicly, and that EA orgs are far better. This is part of the reason I’m a fan of EA philanthropies. The only foundation I know of which writes content reasons for every grant is GiveWell, and besides that very few are more transparent than OP.
I think a reasonable response might be for OpenPhil to not change anything -and list information the same way they do now, but if scrutiny comes like here, then perhaps they could respond in detail. Helena and Atlas I think are the only 2 that have come under the pump recently on the forum—I don’t think moderately in depth and specific replies would be that difficult. There may be on occasions good reasons for not sharing information, then saying that in a reply would be good.
I don’t think that this forum is overly dedicated to verbosely tearing apart grants from OpenPhil. A small percentage of Openphil grants come under scrutiny here, and a lot of respondants to the posters who criticise make efforts to steelman grants. Also just looking at Karma and agreement voting there is more support for defence of OP in the thread than criticism here at least.
As a tiny note—the hits based approach is great no issues there, but with this approach it might be easy and helpful here to outline what the hit would be if successful, and why the org is well placed to potentially (even if low percentage chance) of hitting that home run.
I’m not Nick, but if I were concerned enough about the grant, I would ask if it would be possible to disclose those reasons to a few independent community members under an NDA that allows them to tell the community only whether there were good reasons not to disclose more info, and whether the grant was reasonable in their eyes. That would be cumbersome and only appropriate in fairly rare cases.
I am not personally concerned about this grant very much—I can surmise a plausible and defensible reason for making it that Open Phil would prefer not to disclose, and am OK assuming that was the reason.
“And in general is be interested if there was a format of forum critiques that OP would be most interested in.” I really like this, and feels in the spirit of EA.
“No others have forums dedicated to verbosely tearing apart their grants when they smell weakness.”
How could people’s input be best framed? Do you think this critique adds any value? I guess it does, so how best to frame it?
Apologies for the snarky language, but I did not mean to disparage the criticisms in the slightest. I think they are quite fine as they are, and do add value (80% confidence). I’m just pointing out that people frequently say there is no scrutiny of OP while engaging in an explicit act of scrutiny.
It’s very true that big philanthropies are surprisingly bad at giving reasons for their grants publicly, and that EA orgs are far better. This is part of the reason I’m a fan of EA philanthropies. The only foundation I know of which writes content reasons for every grant is GiveWell, and besides that very few are more transparent than OP.
I think a reasonable response might be for OpenPhil to not change anything -and list information the same way they do now, but if scrutiny comes like here, then perhaps they could respond in detail. Helena and Atlas I think are the only 2 that have come under the pump recently on the forum—I don’t think moderately in depth and specific replies would be that difficult. There may be on occasions good reasons for not sharing information, then saying that in a reply would be good.
I don’t think that this forum is overly dedicated to verbosely tearing apart grants from OpenPhil. A small percentage of Openphil grants come under scrutiny here, and a lot of respondants to the posters who criticise make efforts to steelman grants. Also just looking at Karma and agreement voting there is more support for defence of OP in the thread than criticism here at least.
As a tiny note—the hits based approach is great no issues there, but with this approach it might be easy and helpful here to outline what the hit would be if successful, and why the org is well placed to potentially (even if low percentage chance) of hitting that home run.
If ASB said “there are good reasons not to provide more details”, would you accept that, or ask for the reasons?
I’m not Nick, but if I were concerned enough about the grant, I would ask if it would be possible to disclose those reasons to a few independent community members under an NDA that allows them to tell the community only whether there were good reasons not to disclose more info, and whether the grant was reasonable in their eyes. That would be cumbersome and only appropriate in fairly rare cases.
I am not personally concerned about this grant very much—I can surmise a plausible and defensible reason for making it that Open Phil would prefer not to disclose, and am OK assuming that was the reason.
Yea that’s reasonable.
Thanks yes i would accept that and what Jason said below would be absolute gold standard.
Great.
And in general is be interested if there was a format of forum critiques that OP would be most interested in.
Also, for Nuno I’ll ask when OP gonna let us bet against them.
“And in general is be interested if there was a format of forum critiques that OP would be most interested in.” I really like this, and feels in the spirit of EA.