People in the EA community can and should try to influence organizations when we think they could be doing better; we don’t just consider it “their business” what they do. For example, StrongMinds should not be a top-rated charity (yet) was trying to convince GWWC to change an endorsement, and I’ve written some and myself. Approaches to interpersonal relationships have effects outside specific organizations, and individual organizations are often too small to put lots of time into carefully coming up with the ideal policies around these issues.
We do need to be careful not to flood organizations with nosy feedback, but if after talking on the Forum and elsewhere in the community it becomes clear that there’s wide support for a norm I think it’s pretty reasonable to try to make that case to organizations we think could benefit from it.
I have no problem advocating influencing other organization’s policies around behavior. I have a problem with trying to directly influence individuals’ behavior through community norms. As I said above, organizational policies are a) explicit, b) governed by consent, and c) structurally limited in scope whereas “community norms” that attempt to directly alter behavior through social sanction, public shaming, etc. are a) inherently murky, b) not governed by consent, and c) limitless in scope. For these reasons, organizational policy is much less likely to create a community full of intrusive and toxic behavior than the encouragement of community norms.
People in the EA community can and should try to influence organizations when we think they could be doing better; we don’t just consider it “their business” what they do. For example, StrongMinds should not be a top-rated charity (yet) was trying to convince GWWC to change an endorsement, and I’ve written some and myself. Approaches to interpersonal relationships have effects outside specific organizations, and individual organizations are often too small to put lots of time into carefully coming up with the ideal policies around these issues.
We do need to be careful not to flood organizations with nosy feedback, but if after talking on the Forum and elsewhere in the community it becomes clear that there’s wide support for a norm I think it’s pretty reasonable to try to make that case to organizations we think could benefit from it.
I have no problem advocating influencing other organization’s policies around behavior. I have a problem with trying to directly influence individuals’ behavior through community norms. As I said above, organizational policies are a) explicit, b) governed by consent, and c) structurally limited in scope whereas “community norms” that attempt to directly alter behavior through social sanction, public shaming, etc. are a) inherently murky, b) not governed by consent, and c) limitless in scope. For these reasons, organizational policy is much less likely to create a community full of intrusive and toxic behavior than the encouragement of community norms.