Meta: Risk of false info spread through incorrect headline, and how we could avoid that
In a recent discussion on the EA philanthrophy landscape, one person expressed concerns about the “fact that only a single person decides on CB Grants”, which is not true (as Harri explained in his comment). That person had the info from reading this forum post (don’t know if she read the entire post or only the headline), but apparently she did not read Harri’s comment and therefore assumed this to be true. In this case, I could correct her assumption and explain that it’s actually not a single person making these decisions, but in other cases, this incorrect statement might spread further without being corrected.
This seems potentially very harmful to the community and I wonder how we could avoid these risks. One useful norm is certainly to double-check any statements before sharing them (which that person could have done), but another one might also be to approach such topics more carefully, e.g. contacting CEA before writing a post based on an incorrect assumption (though I can see how the CEA’s org chart makes it seem this way) or framing posts differently (e.g. as question instead of statement). (Note that I’m still strongly in favor of discussing such topics on the EA forum and elsewhere)
Curious about your thoughts!
@Jan, please note that I do find your post important, particularly for bringing up the risks of having only one institution giving out CB grants, and I’m glad you wrote it! Please keep writing such posts! I just want to avoid risks for spreading false info.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I modified the title and a respective part in the post.
I didn’t have the time to check in with CEA before writing the post so I had to choose between writing the post as is or not writing it at all. That’s why the first line says (in italics) “I’m not entirely sure that there is really no other official source for local group funding. Please correct me in the comments. ”
I think I could have predicted that this is not enough to keep people from walking away with a false impression so I think I should have chosen a different headline.
Meta: Risk of false info spread through incorrect headline, and how we could avoid that
In a recent discussion on the EA philanthrophy landscape, one person expressed concerns about the “fact that only a single person decides on CB Grants”, which is not true (as Harri explained in his comment). That person had the info from reading this forum post (don’t know if she read the entire post or only the headline), but apparently she did not read Harri’s comment and therefore assumed this to be true. In this case, I could correct her assumption and explain that it’s actually not a single person making these decisions, but in other cases, this incorrect statement might spread further without being corrected.
This seems potentially very harmful to the community and I wonder how we could avoid these risks. One useful norm is certainly to double-check any statements before sharing them (which that person could have done), but another one might also be to approach such topics more carefully, e.g. contacting CEA before writing a post based on an incorrect assumption (though I can see how the CEA’s org chart makes it seem this way) or framing posts differently (e.g. as question instead of statement). (Note that I’m still strongly in favor of discussing such topics on the EA forum and elsewhere)
Curious about your thoughts!
@Jan, please note that I do find your post important, particularly for bringing up the risks of having only one institution giving out CB grants, and I’m glad you wrote it! Please keep writing such posts! I just want to avoid risks for spreading false info.
Thanks for bringing this to my attention, I modified the title and a respective part in the post.
I didn’t have the time to check in with CEA before writing the post so I had to choose between writing the post as is or not writing it at all. That’s why the first line says (in italics) “I’m not entirely sure that there is really no other official source for local group funding. Please correct me in the comments. ”
I think I could have predicted that this is not enough to keep people from walking away with a false impression so I think I should have chosen a different headline.
Thanks for taking the time to reply and update the title! :)
Yes, I saw your disclaimer and think it’s helpful, people might indeed not read it or disregard it as the former title sounded rather certain.