Thanks for this; I think engagement like this is great & would be excited to see more of it!
For example: there have been 12 posts on psychedelics on the forum in 2019, and only 4 on malaria, despite malaria being a much more mainstream cause within EA. Respondents were particularly concerned that newcomers may get an inaccurate picture of what the community values.
There’s a general dynamic whereby new & controversial stuff gets more attention than old & agreed-upon stuff.
Given that the Forum is a clearinghouse for new EA thought, I wouldn’t expect Forum content to reflect the distribution of what the community values.
Thanks, Milan! I agree that one impact of the Forum is sharing new ideas, and there are other impacts as well – my colleagues JP and Aaron have written some of these here.
I think our respondents were pointing out that, regardless of what the forum “should” be for, newcomers are going to assume that the content is representative of EA. One project we are working on is putting a new version of the handbook on the Forum, which we hope will provide newcomers with a more representative introduction to EA, while still keeping the existing aspects of the Forum for those who want new articles.
If you have more feedback on the goals of the Forum, we would be excited to hear them!
Thanks for this; I think engagement like this is great & would be excited to see more of it!
There’s a general dynamic whereby new & controversial stuff gets more attention than old & agreed-upon stuff.
Given that the Forum is a clearinghouse for new EA thought, I wouldn’t expect Forum content to reflect the distribution of what the community values.
Thanks, Milan! I agree that one impact of the Forum is sharing new ideas, and there are other impacts as well – my colleagues JP and Aaron have written some of these here.
I think our respondents were pointing out that, regardless of what the forum “should” be for, newcomers are going to assume that the content is representative of EA. One project we are working on is putting a new version of the handbook on the Forum, which we hope will provide newcomers with a more representative introduction to EA, while still keeping the existing aspects of the Forum for those who want new articles.
If you have more feedback on the goals of the Forum, we would be excited to hear them!