Thanks for writing this Sarah; nice to have leaders sharing thinking/requesting feedback!
My quick ‘off-the-cuff’ thoughts in response:
I definitely agree the Forum is critical as a “space” in EA, particularly for those of us who aren’t living in a hub, have access to conferences, nor work directly in an organization. It can often feel at times like being a buoy at sea without that direct connection—the handful of times I’ve drifted from EA over the years it has been the Forum pulling me back in (by helping me get up to speed on what’s going on especially in cases like the FTX stuff … and contests are often one of the few ways I feel I can participate—i.e. open phil’s worldview prize, red teaming, future fund RFP).
I have at times seen established EAs “punch-down” on the “extremely online” EAs and I’ve felt that to be a shallow judgement of those of us not privy to direct engagement opportunities. It definitely gave me the impression the movement and community are two separate entities not always aligned. I’d like to think the Forum could better blur that distinction to avoid hubs becoming silos with strong views (which I think contributes to the confusion around the public perception of EA).
That aside, the Forum right now is confusing because it’s providing multiple services in one; a newspaper, an opportunities/classifieds board, a library (the wiki) and a discussion space though not as free flowing as slack/discord. Now with groups and CRM and event tracking it’s becoming a catch-all for EA information. Given this…
Has the forum team considered reframing the Forum as an intranet? (Note, the intranet model is often associated with corporations but it’s used in a lot of contexts for brand community sites, colleges and social groups).
I’m thinking one of the limitations of the Forum is that the name implies one feature, but now the Forum is so much more than that—if we were to shift away from centralizing “the Forum” aspect and make it the “Hub” or “EA Online”… whatever it’s called, the idea is to step back and reframe the online space as more than just a “forum” because that’s what it’s becoming, as evidenced by CEA taking on the EA Hub and the Opps Board recently, it’s clear the goal is for CEA to manage the movement’s digital infrastructure.
I see the intranet design helping resolve issues like low engagement. If people can accomplish multiple things like search/apply for jobs, join topic threads, and chat with each other, complete surveys and more, they may be more likely to login and engage. This can help on the backend with things like surveys, community health team work (ticket system), and maybe down the road a common app or work trials. It also helps draw a boundary around community conversations that don’t need to be as public (which I think is a huge deterrent for engagement right now).
I’d be happy to discuss more in-depth and share some examples of what I’m visualizing here but I’ve long thought the Forum was heading in the “intranet” direction and could provide a lot of benefit for both members of the movement and those running infrastructure for it.
Thank you for sharing your experience and your feedback! :) I’m happy to hear that the Forum has been valuable for you in the past.
I’d like to think the Forum could better blur that distinction to avoid hubs becoming silos with strong views (which I think contributes to the confusion around the public perception of EA).
I like this framing, and I think it is a real value that the Forum can provide. Seems like it fits into my point #3 here, about why a central online space is a good bet.
the Forum right now is confusing because it’s providing multiple services in one; a newspaper, an opportunities/classifieds board, a library (the wiki) and a discussion space though not as free flowing as slack/discord. Now with groups and CRM and event tracking it’s becoming a catch-all for EA information
Yeah this is fair. I still think that the core of the Forum is discussion. The wiki is mostly useful to organize that discussion (including making it easy to view past relevant discussions). News posts are significantly more valuable if people discuss it in the comments.
Things like job postings do provide some value to the world (sometimes it leads to people getting hired in an impactful role), but I don’t view that as the primary goal of the Forum. I think dedicated job and opportunity boards are better suited for those goals. Think of it this way: if the Forum frontpage was only job postings, then people would only come if they were looking for a job. In that situation we’ve just turned into a worse version of a dedicated job board. If the Forum frontpage was only discussion posts and had no job postings, that still seems quite valuable, and in fact feels like a reasonable state for the Forum to be in (though I don’t currently think we should separate out job postings).
Has the forum team considered reframing the Forum as an intranet?
Perhaps others on the team have, though I haven’t thought about this specific framing before. I think there is some interest from inside of CEA to move in this direction (for example, more closely integrating Swapcard/EAG and EAGxVirtual with the Forum), so I wouldn’t be surprised if we do. I think this is certainly a possible long-term goal for the Forum, but I currently feel unsure if it’s the right fit. For now, this sounds like mostly a software product-focused play, and I’m currently more optimistic about focusing on community building than focusing on the Forum as a product. But I could imagine that once the community feels like it’s in a better place, we go back to investing in the product in a way that resembles an intranet.
Thanks for writing this Sarah; nice to have leaders sharing thinking/requesting feedback!
My quick ‘off-the-cuff’ thoughts in response:
I definitely agree the Forum is critical as a “space” in EA, particularly for those of us who aren’t living in a hub, have access to conferences, nor work directly in an organization. It can often feel at times like being a buoy at sea without that direct connection—the handful of times I’ve drifted from EA over the years it has been the Forum pulling me back in (by helping me get up to speed on what’s going on especially in cases like the FTX stuff … and contests are often one of the few ways I feel I can participate—i.e. open phil’s worldview prize, red teaming, future fund RFP).
I have at times seen established EAs “punch-down” on the “extremely online” EAs and I’ve felt that to be a shallow judgement of those of us not privy to direct engagement opportunities. It definitely gave me the impression the movement and community are two separate entities not always aligned. I’d like to think the Forum could better blur that distinction to avoid hubs becoming silos with strong views (which I think contributes to the confusion around the public perception of EA).
That aside, the Forum right now is confusing because it’s providing multiple services in one; a newspaper, an opportunities/classifieds board, a library (the wiki) and a discussion space though not as free flowing as slack/discord. Now with groups and CRM and event tracking it’s becoming a catch-all for EA information. Given this…
Has the forum team considered reframing the Forum as an intranet? (Note, the intranet model is often associated with corporations but it’s used in a lot of contexts for brand community sites, colleges and social groups).
I’m thinking one of the limitations of the Forum is that the name implies one feature, but now the Forum is so much more than that—if we were to shift away from centralizing “the Forum” aspect and make it the “Hub” or “EA Online”… whatever it’s called, the idea is to step back and reframe the online space as more than just a “forum” because that’s what it’s becoming, as evidenced by CEA taking on the EA Hub and the Opps Board recently, it’s clear the goal is for CEA to manage the movement’s digital infrastructure.
I see the intranet design helping resolve issues like low engagement. If people can accomplish multiple things like search/apply for jobs, join topic threads, and chat with each other, complete surveys and more, they may be more likely to login and engage. This can help on the backend with things like surveys, community health team work (ticket system), and maybe down the road a common app or work trials. It also helps draw a boundary around community conversations that don’t need to be as public (which I think is a huge deterrent for engagement right now).
I’d be happy to discuss more in-depth and share some examples of what I’m visualizing here but I’ve long thought the Forum was heading in the “intranet” direction and could provide a lot of benefit for both members of the movement and those running infrastructure for it.
Thank you for sharing your experience and your feedback! :) I’m happy to hear that the Forum has been valuable for you in the past.
I like this framing, and I think it is a real value that the Forum can provide. Seems like it fits into my point #3 here, about why a central online space is a good bet.
Yeah this is fair. I still think that the core of the Forum is discussion. The wiki is mostly useful to organize that discussion (including making it easy to view past relevant discussions). News posts are significantly more valuable if people discuss it in the comments.
Things like job postings do provide some value to the world (sometimes it leads to people getting hired in an impactful role), but I don’t view that as the primary goal of the Forum. I think dedicated job and opportunity boards are better suited for those goals. Think of it this way: if the Forum frontpage was only job postings, then people would only come if they were looking for a job. In that situation we’ve just turned into a worse version of a dedicated job board. If the Forum frontpage was only discussion posts and had no job postings, that still seems quite valuable, and in fact feels like a reasonable state for the Forum to be in (though I don’t currently think we should separate out job postings).
Perhaps others on the team have, though I haven’t thought about this specific framing before. I think there is some interest from inside of CEA to move in this direction (for example, more closely integrating Swapcard/EAG and EAGxVirtual with the Forum), so I wouldn’t be surprised if we do. I think this is certainly a possible long-term goal for the Forum, but I currently feel unsure if it’s the right fit. For now, this sounds like mostly a software product-focused play, and I’m currently more optimistic about focusing on community building than focusing on the Forum as a product. But I could imagine that once the community feels like it’s in a better place, we go back to investing in the product in a way that resembles an intranet.