You keep coming back to this focus on doing “something,” which has been suggested on the forum before. You seem to think that freelancing together beats many other alternatives. Why do you think that freelancing is competitive with other options discussed in the articles you cited?
Examples of “something” that could be (and often is) done instead of freelancing contracts:
-animal advocacy
-political lobbying
-research or writing an “Effective Thesis”
-making yourself more employable for after you graduate
-hosting a fundraiser
EDIT: I keep focusing on the freelancing point, because that’s the unique aspect of your post. But maybe the freelancing idea wasn’t your core concern—maybe you were more focused on talking about why local groups should do direct work. In that case, I think you’d find better discussion in the comments of one of the already-posted groups or with the leaders of the local group you visited than on this new post.
The point is to have something done at a regular weekly EA meeting that is specific to EA. Something concrete. Something constant. I got the impression talking with other students that weekly club meetings primarily entail discussing ideas.
animal advocacy
There are other groups that do this on campus. It’s definitely related to EA, but combined with the fact that it’s a soft-sell, volunteering at a local animal shelter or food pantry—in my opinion—seems like a better use of time. Not eating meat or not eating animal products is a significant lifestyle change. It’s not completely futile, but a scant chance in my eyes. Anyway, my campus isn’t all that big and the city is very small. Doing this sort of direct work every week just doesn’t fit the bill.
political lobbying
I have a hard time seeing this as EA specific. Additionally, political focused clubs are on campus. Sure, writing a letter to a rep is good, but...
research
To what end? I’m attend an engineering university. I don’t consider my personal research into electromagnetics EA centered.
writing an “Effective Thesis”
This seems to be for philosophy and political science type degrees. In the states, undergrads don’t write a thesis.
making yourself more employable for after you graduate
Then you’re saying there should not be an EA club on my campus. Mechanical and electrical engineering majors have clubs such as IEEE specifically for this. Again, the point of the post is to find something that is objectively done at an EA meeting. This way, in the future, if I friend says: “Nothing was practically accomplished at the meeting. Ideas were discussed.” I can say, “That was a social-type meeting. At work-type meeting we complete things on eawork.club, we do freelance jobs online and then donate to stringently evaluated charities or at least volunteer locally.
hosting a fundraiser
For my local chapter of Engineers Without Borders we do this. We make out poorly compared to the time put in. Although, this is the best example of an event that’s EA focused. It makes EA unique. It’s concrete.
I believe, since so many GWWC members are software developers and engineers, there could easily be meetups to get out there and tackle online contracts. Even for non-CS professions, such as an electrical engineer, it would be beneficial. Plus it adds to higher employability. Having experience doing contract work in Python, for my degree in electrical engineering, would be a whole lot better than attending a workshop on generic interview skills.
So to sum up, yes, I’m talking about weekly direct work—specific to EA. Discussing EA is left to the sidelines (put in when needed). Completing contracts would be EA specific. Hosting a fundraiser would be too. These are concrete things.
This is actually what I currently think EA groups should focus on, not because the research itself is likely to be directly important, but because I think generally, one of the most important things an EA community should do is help it’s members learn how to think critically through an EA lens.
Research isn’t the only way to go about this, but I think trying to answer real questions, while taking into account impact, practicality, neglectedness, etc to help you orient on the right questions, is a good practice.
You keep coming back to this focus on doing “something,” which has been suggested on the forum before. You seem to think that freelancing together beats many other alternatives. Why do you think that freelancing is competitive with other options discussed in the articles you cited?
Examples of “something” that could be (and often is) done instead of freelancing contracts:
-animal advocacy
-political lobbying
-research or writing an “Effective Thesis”
-making yourself more employable for after you graduate
-hosting a fundraiser
EDIT: I keep focusing on the freelancing point, because that’s the unique aspect of your post. But maybe the freelancing idea wasn’t your core concern—maybe you were more focused on talking about why local groups should do direct work. In that case, I think you’d find better discussion in the comments of one of the already-posted groups or with the leaders of the local group you visited than on this new post.
The point is to have something done at a regular weekly EA meeting that is specific to EA. Something concrete. Something constant. I got the impression talking with other students that weekly club meetings primarily entail discussing ideas.
animal advocacy
There are other groups that do this on campus. It’s definitely related to EA, but combined with the fact that it’s a soft-sell, volunteering at a local animal shelter or food pantry—in my opinion—seems like a better use of time. Not eating meat or not eating animal products is a significant lifestyle change. It’s not completely futile, but a scant chance in my eyes. Anyway, my campus isn’t all that big and the city is very small. Doing this sort of direct work every week just doesn’t fit the bill.
political lobbying
I have a hard time seeing this as EA specific. Additionally, political focused clubs are on campus. Sure, writing a letter to a rep is good, but...
research
To what end? I’m attend an engineering university. I don’t consider my personal research into electromagnetics EA centered.
writing an “Effective Thesis”
This seems to be for philosophy and political science type degrees. In the states, undergrads don’t write a thesis.
making yourself more employable for after you graduate
Then you’re saying there should not be an EA club on my campus. Mechanical and electrical engineering majors have clubs such as IEEE specifically for this. Again, the point of the post is to find something that is objectively done at an EA meeting. This way, in the future, if I friend says: “Nothing was practically accomplished at the meeting. Ideas were discussed.” I can say, “That was a social-type meeting. At work-type meeting we complete things on eawork.club, we do freelance jobs online and then donate to stringently evaluated charities or at least volunteer locally.
hosting a fundraiser
For my local chapter of Engineers Without Borders we do this. We make out poorly compared to the time put in. Although, this is the best example of an event that’s EA focused. It makes EA unique. It’s concrete.
I believe, since so many GWWC members are software developers and engineers, there could easily be meetups to get out there and tackle online contracts. Even for non-CS professions, such as an electrical engineer, it would be beneficial. Plus it adds to higher employability. Having experience doing contract work in Python, for my degree in electrical engineering, would be a whole lot better than attending a workshop on generic interview skills.
So to sum up, yes, I’m talking about weekly direct work—specific to EA. Discussing EA is left to the sidelines (put in when needed). Completing contracts would be EA specific. Hosting a fundraiser would be too. These are concrete things.
Re: Research
This is actually what I currently think EA groups should focus on, not because the research itself is likely to be directly important, but because I think generally, one of the most important things an EA community should do is help it’s members learn how to think critically through an EA lens.
Research isn’t the only way to go about this, but I think trying to answer real questions, while taking into account impact, practicality, neglectedness, etc to help you orient on the right questions, is a good practice.