The EA Forum Review was an initiative to identify and highlight the most valuable writing from the first decade of the Effective Altruism Forum. Modeled on LessWrong’s annual review, it invited users to reflect on older posts, evaluate their lasting impact, and reward work that had shaped the community’s thinking.
Purpose
The Review aimed to answer questions like:
Which ideas have held up and influenced action?
What writing deserves more attention or further development?
How can we learn from our best intellectual work so far?
It also encouraged post updates, thoughtful reviews, and resurfacing of overlooked ideas.
Process
The 2021 Review followed a three-stage structure:
Nominations and Preliminary Voting (Dec 1–Jan 15):
Users upvoted valuable posts from before 2021. Posts with at least one positive vote were nominated for review.Reviews (Dec 15–Jan 15):
Participants wrote reviews discussing how posts had been useful, where they fit in EA’s broader discourse, and how they could be improved. Only reviewed posts advanced to the final stage.Final Voting (Jan 16–Feb 1):
Users cast one weighted vote per post. The most highly rated posts were featured in the final list and prize pool.
Participation and Prizes
Only users with Forum accounts created before December 2021 could vote. Authors could not vote on their own work. The Review awarded up to $15,000 in prizes:
For top posts
For authors who revised their work
For thoughtful reviews
Some winners chose to donate their prizes.
Further reading
Gertler, Aaron & JP Addison (2021) Effective Altruism: The First Decade (Forum Review), Effective Altruism Forum, December 2. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jB7Ten8qmDszRMTho/effective-altruism-the-first-decade-forum-review
Lizka (2022) Results from the First Decade Review, Effective Altruism Forum, May 13. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/FEFEvC6BzswR4oQqm/results-from-the-first-decade-review#Prizes_for_posts
Lizka (2022) Winners of the First Decade Review, Effective Altruism Forum, May 13. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/s/HSA8wsaYiqdt4ouNF