Reading Evan’s comment and Sarah’s response—along with some other comments like @titotal’s—updates me to a mild-to-moderate degree toward the possibility that there may be a felt (and possibly real) need for two or more related spaces that call for mutually inconsistent design criteria. One might be more academic, formal, and rigorous while the other related space would be more flexible, open, and accessible. That feels like a big change from the status quo, and I’m hardly confident my update is directionally correct. But I think it’s worth pondering whether different groups of users may be seeking things from the Forum experience that are valid, worthwhile, and yet incompatible.
Yeah, I think it’s hard (and maybe not worth our resources) to build one space that fulfills all of those criteria. I think it would be fun for the Forum to have a more casual space, but there exist many other places that can fill that need:
Reading Evan’s comment and Sarah’s response—along with some other comments like @titotal’s—updates me to a mild-to-moderate degree toward the possibility that there may be a felt (and possibly real) need for two or more related spaces that call for mutually inconsistent design criteria. One might be more academic, formal, and rigorous while the other related space would be more flexible, open, and accessible. That feels like a big change from the status quo, and I’m hardly confident my update is directionally correct. But I think it’s worth pondering whether different groups of users may be seeking things from the Forum experience that are valid, worthwhile, and yet incompatible.
Yeah, I think it’s hard (and maybe not worth our resources) to build one space that fulfills all of those criteria. I think it would be fun for the Forum to have a more casual space, but there exist many other places that can fill that need:
The EA subreddit
EA Anywhere’s slack workspace and virtual events
EA Gather (a virtual space to hang out and co-work)
The EA community on Twitter
The Effective Altruism Facebook group
The EA Hangout Facebook group
The EA Corner Discord
Personally I don’t use any of these very often so I don’t have much opinion on them.