It’d essentially be what it’d sound like. There have a few posts in the last couple months about how EA has become less accessible and welcoming to newcomers as it has become a bigger and more complicated movement in the last few years. It’s a growing concern, so this seems like an obvious way to start remedying the problem. Here are some ideas that come to mind as possibilities:
A sequence could be something like an index, lexicon or glossary of EA.
Bringing concepts together so people new to EA can understand it in a systemic, methodical and coherent way by citing existing EA Forum posts or wiki articles could work and wouldn’t be hard to do.
There are more EA courses but short(er) reviews or summaries of courses and/or their content could be worthwhile.
Posts that serve the role of a Cliff Notes for various books authored by people in EA.
I’d also like to hear about alternative ideas or also any concerns/thoughts that this is a bad idea, or something else should be done instead.
Just in case some people don’t know them, some useful material I’ve found related to introducing EA to newcomers is the following:
EA Wiki Key Concepts and Tools.
GCP Library.
GCP Student Handbook.
EA Groups Resource Centre. (Particularly their Communicating about EA section)
It’s not exactly what you’re asking for, but I thought it would be good to mention them. That way more people can know about them and we can also avoid repeating efforts. :)
No, this is great. Thanks for sharing.
Resources like these can be used by pulling existing representations of crucial information and bringing them together as a sequential, coherent whole. I don’t want to create any unnecessary redundancy. At the same time, though, information like this should be concentrated in a single spot online, or at least presented in a way that meets the needs of those who are finding EA inaccessible.
I’m aware in the last year or two the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) and others have been trying to redress this by creating new resources, like the resource centre and different programs/courses. Given that those resources are designed to address the exact problem that EA is not sufficiently accessible, those are the resources I’m most concerned that this effort could just cause confusion about.
I’ll seek feedback throughout the effort, including from particular organizations as pertinent for different subjects, and failing that, I’m guessing some others will recommend suggestions or correct mistakes along the way. It can be done in a gradual, semi-coordinated way. I figure if it’s done well enough, different groups might want to integrate parts of the sequence into existing resource portals off of the EA Forum too.