This was a super helpful write-up! My only point of feedback would be to write a short version of this into the waitlist/rejection emails for future EAGs (or even the next wave for this EAG). It was really confusing to get waitlisted after being accepted for the last 4 years with a form rejection email without any explanation. Maybe add it in for people who answer that they’ve attended EAG before? I imagine that would help from turning people off to EA/EAG. I definitely had an immediate reaction of not feeling valued by the community after being involved for ~5 years (and was sad I won’t see my EA friends/acquaintances this year), hopefully other people didn’t feel that way.
It’s good to hear more resources are being put into EAGx events, but if they are “oriented to students and other earlier-stage EAs who are less likely to be able to get into EA Global”, will there be some in-between events for people who are older and more experienced but didn’t get into EAG this year?
Apologies if any of this came off as mean/bitter, EAG is one of my favorite times of the year (I’m one of the people that loves going to talks)! :)
This seems to be a good problem to have, as it seems we’re growing to the point where we can’t accommodate everyone in one place. I’d be interested to hear about future plans to accommodate the growth of having more “advanced” EAs across the US/world since right now it seems like if we don’t live in a major EA city, EAG is our only chance to see other EAs and learn new things.
Thanks for taking the time to share this. I didn’t read it as bitter. I read it as you sharing your experience with a disappointment (understandable) and then going on to share helpful suggestions for us and others who care about the event. We sincerely appreciate that.
My only point of feedback would be to write a short version of this into the waitlist/rejection emails for future EAGs (or even the next wave for this EAG).
This is a good suggestion—we will add more information to those emails.
I definitely had an immediate reaction of not feeling valued by the community after being involved for ~5 years (and was sad I won’t see my EA friends/acquaintances this year), hopefully other people didn’t feel that way.
Thanks for raising this – we really do want to reiterate that we were not able to accept many dedicated EAs doing valuable things, and hope that you can help us share this message.
will there be some in-between events for people who are older and more experienced but didn’t get into EAG this year?
We are not currently planning anything “in-between” the two EA Globals and the 3-4 EAGx’s in 2020.
I’d be interested to hear about future plans to accommodate the growth of having more “advanced” EAs across the US/world since right now it seems like if we don’t live in a major EA city, EAG is our only chance to see other EAs and learn new things.
We plan to publish more information about our events strategy in early 2020. Until then you can check out my response to Denkenberger above for one example of a way we are trying to accommodate growth.
This was a super helpful write-up! My only point of feedback would be to write a short version of this into the waitlist/rejection emails for future EAGs (or even the next wave for this EAG). It was really confusing to get waitlisted after being accepted for the last 4 years with a form rejection email without any explanation. Maybe add it in for people who answer that they’ve attended EAG before? I imagine that would help from turning people off to EA/EAG. I definitely had an immediate reaction of not feeling valued by the community after being involved for ~5 years (and was sad I won’t see my EA friends/acquaintances this year), hopefully other people didn’t feel that way.
It’s good to hear more resources are being put into EAGx events, but if they are “oriented to students and other earlier-stage EAs who are less likely to be able to get into EA Global”, will there be some in-between events for people who are older and more experienced but didn’t get into EAG this year?
Apologies if any of this came off as mean/bitter, EAG is one of my favorite times of the year (I’m one of the people that loves going to talks)! :)
This seems to be a good problem to have, as it seems we’re growing to the point where we can’t accommodate everyone in one place. I’d be interested to hear about future plans to accommodate the growth of having more “advanced” EAs across the US/world since right now it seems like if we don’t live in a major EA city, EAG is our only chance to see other EAs and learn new things.
Thanks for taking the time to share this. I didn’t read it as bitter. I read it as you sharing your experience with a disappointment (understandable) and then going on to share helpful suggestions for us and others who care about the event. We sincerely appreciate that.
This is a good suggestion—we will add more information to those emails.
Thanks for raising this – we really do want to reiterate that we were not able to accept many dedicated EAs doing valuable things, and hope that you can help us share this message.
We are not currently planning anything “in-between” the two EA Globals and the 3-4 EAGx’s in 2020.
We plan to publish more information about our events strategy in early 2020. Until then you can check out my response to Denkenberger above for one example of a way we are trying to accommodate growth.