In the future different types of rewards could probably improve results of initiatives like this. Currently the small chance of big rewards for major commitments very strongly selects for people who can afford to commit a large amounts of personal risk and time to it.
Blogging is also extremely long-tailed in impact (=vast majority of blogs have no readers), so ultimately it seems that this sort of reward selects for people who A) can afford to spend significant time on writing, and B) consider it OK to spend time pursuing a prize with an activity that is very likely to have no impact.
The way blogging and more generally writing usually seem to work, is that people do it well due to intrinsic motivation. It is hard to pay directly for quality content, especially if you want it to continue independently of financial incentives.
As an alternative, giving many small rewards with little uncertainty for the recipients, would result in many people trying blogging, without so many adverse selection effects. Most of the participants would probably not continue blogging, but it would increase the absolute number of people who try blogging, and through that increase the odds of finding great bloggers who would’ve otherwise not blogged.
In more general form, it seems that this sort of prizes would work better to motivate tasks that people are already doing, as a way to increase their commitment and quality. For example, prizes for research, or retrospective blogging prizes.
In the future different types of rewards could probably improve results of initiatives like this.
We’re likely going to announce subsequent prizes as this project develops. “Best critique of longtermism” will probably be the first. Please let me know if you have any ideas.
Giving many small rewards with little uncertainty for the recipients, would result in many people trying blogging, without so many adverse selection effects.
This is what we are doing through our grant making program. Feel free to refer people to nickwhitaker@effectiveideas.org. We want to make sure that financial restraint doesn’t prevent potentially high quality bloggers from starting blogs.
In the future different types of rewards could probably improve results of initiatives like this. Currently the small chance of big rewards for major commitments very strongly selects for people who can afford to commit a large amounts of personal risk and time to it.
Blogging is also extremely long-tailed in impact (=vast majority of blogs have no readers), so ultimately it seems that this sort of reward selects for people who A) can afford to spend significant time on writing, and B) consider it OK to spend time pursuing a prize with an activity that is very likely to have no impact.
The way blogging and more generally writing usually seem to work, is that people do it well due to intrinsic motivation. It is hard to pay directly for quality content, especially if you want it to continue independently of financial incentives.
As an alternative, giving many small rewards with little uncertainty for the recipients, would result in many people trying blogging, without so many adverse selection effects. Most of the participants would probably not continue blogging, but it would increase the absolute number of people who try blogging, and through that increase the odds of finding great bloggers who would’ve otherwise not blogged.
In more general form, it seems that this sort of prizes would work better to motivate tasks that people are already doing, as a way to increase their commitment and quality. For example, prizes for research, or retrospective blogging prizes.
Thanks for these comments.
We’re likely going to announce subsequent prizes as this project develops. “Best critique of longtermism” will probably be the first. Please let me know if you have any ideas.
This is what we are doing through our grant making program. Feel free to refer people to nickwhitaker@effectiveideas.org. We want to make sure that financial restraint doesn’t prevent potentially high quality bloggers from starting blogs.