I’m a contact person for the effective altruism community: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hYh6jKBsKXH8mWwtc/a-contact-person-for-the-ea-community
Please feel free to contact me at julia.wise@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.
I work at CEA as a community liaison, trying to make the EA community stronger and more welcoming. I also serve on the board of GiveWell.
Besides effective altruism, I’m interested in folk dance and trying to keep up with my three children.
I’m responding on behalf of the community health team at the Centre for Effective Altruism. We work to prevent and address problems in the community, including sexual misconduct.
I find the piece doesn’t accurately convey how my team, or the EA community more broadly, reacts to this sort of behavior.
We work to address harmful behavior, including sexual misconduct, because we think it’s so important that this community has a good culture where people can do their best work without harassment or other mistreatment. Ignoring problems or sweeping them under the rug would be terrible for people in the community, EA’s culture, and our ability to do good in the world.
My team didn’t have a chance to explain the actions we’ve already taken on the incidents described in this piece. The incidents described here include:
Ones where we already took action years ago, like banning the accused from our spaces
Ones where we offered to help address the situation and the person affected didn’t answer
Ones we weren’t aware of
We’ll be going through the piece to see if there are any situations we might be able to address further, but in most of them there’s not enough information to do so. If you want to share any information about a problem you know of, you can always contact us (including anonymously).
When I first learned about the problems described in the piece, I felt disappointed and angry. I still feel that way. I recognize that problems happen in every community, but that doesn’t make it ok. That’s why we’ve been working for years to prevent and address community problems.
This isn’t a problem that one team or organization can address alone. We regularly talk with group organizers and organization staff who want to build a healthy and supportive culture. I’ve seen many people in the community stand up for people who experienced harm, and work toward the kind of healthy community they feel so strongly about. That strengthens the determination I feel to keep working on this.
If you’ve experienced a problem, we want to help. You can always contact us to discuss a problem.