Founder of the Policy Entrepreneurship Network (policyentrepreneurs.org). Formerly the manager of eahub.org and The Local Effective Altruism Network.
Michal_Trzesimiech
Karma: 398
Sure, linking to it sounds like a fantastic idea! We prioritised this for our next release: https://github.com/rtcharity/eahub.org/issues/571
I believe this is the ultimate vision Rethink Charity’s EA Hub team is working towards. After speaking with the EA Hub, my assessment is that our MVP (minimum viable product) concept and their MVP concept are quite different but may converge in the future; their MVP emphasizes community profiles and geolocation, whereas our MVP emphasizes projects, project evaluations, and project support opportunities.
Our vision is much broader and includes not only profiles of individuals, groups and organisations, but also platforms for collaboration and volunteering, dashboards, and cross-platform search (to bridge eahub.org with forum.effectivealtruism.org and other platforms). At this point, none of these functionalities are meant to be focused primarily on funding.
EA Tech Initiatives is successful, but it only pertains to technology projects, and all of its project listings and opportunities are in a Google Spreadsheet.
Based on the success of Tech Initiatives (goo.gl/6vYCiF), we also launched Research Initiatives but halted that because we learned that the LessWrong 2.0 team already works on a similar product. We certainly are interested in making that into a single, growing ecosystem (you can join that discussion here: goo.gl/TYuFzj).
Just to clarify: we’re not “phasing out” tech support.
As we say in the post:We currently equip local groups with essential technology such as websites, domains, and mailboxes. We anticipate that these will ultimately be transitioned over to CEA and/or be privately hosted by groups. We will continue to provide the services in the interim.
Hi, Aaron! Thanks for raising your concern! Your profile is still here https://eahub.org/profile/aaron-hamlin/, but it hasn’t been activated yet (it will become publicly accessible only after you’ve reset your password). About donation data, we decided to no longer keep that on the Hub, but we would be happy to try to restore your data and send it to you if that’s what you’d like.
Thanks! I added both of your ideas here: https://feedback.eahub.org/. Integrating our profiles with LinkedIn sounds like a low hanging fruit, so I just prioritized it for the June release: https://github.com/rtcharity/eahub.org/issues/598.
Do you have a record of number of people registered over time?
We do have the registration dates. We’ll look into making that into a report for you (https://github.com/rtcharity/eahub.org/issues/595).
Could you please add the Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) to the list of Organisational Affiliations?
Sure, thank you for asking (https://github.com/rtcharity/eahub.org/issues/592)!
Thanks, Peter! We’re still spreading the news of the launch. We use several channels and get a very warm response, which is wonderful!
About the accuracy of the data on personal profiles, we’ve emailed all of our user base asking to update and activate their profiles (all 4000+ of our users will remain hidden before that takes place). We’re confident that the number of people that join us will grow steadily as we add features (you can read about our plans in here https://eahub.org/about/).
The accuracy of the data on local groups will be assured by comparing it against the data we get from the Local Groups Survey. We work with a dedicated team at the Centre for Effective Altruism to make sure the data is clean day-to-day. We also trust that some of this responsibility will be taken from us by the Organizers. We will aim to make that easier for everyone with every future release.
I like your idea of enabling bulk messages and I posted it here https://feedback.eahub.org/. Everyone can add their own ideas or vote on those that are already here. We will treat the results very seriously when prioritising.
At the local presence I run, there happen to appear projects I anticipate strongly to fail when posted, but encourage to try nevertheless for a couple of reasons not mentioned in your post, Richenda:
• The chances for flow-through effects, that “a substantial part of the good that one does may be indirect” and “helping to address any problem is a possible path to addressing many other problems” (https://blog.givewell.org/2013/05/15/flow-through-effects/).
• There’s value in building the culture of doing. I believe the old motto of ours is “figure out how to do the most good, and then do it”. It’s not uncommon for me to hear that we’re failing at the latter. To what extent that’s true or not, is a valid concern.
• As is analysis paralysis, mentioned in this old post: https://80000hours.org/articles/stop-worrying-so-much-about-the-long-term/.
• There’s value in being seen as both thinkers and doers. I find it attracts the kinds of people ready to take the risks of getting through trial and error to gather new insight otherwise more expensive to acquire. It also attracts sympathy from bystanders and potential donors. Especially those who aren’t deeply analytical by default.
• Growth of this sort, as well as the thrill of getting feedback from acting as group is good for building morale.
• Mentioning this, I keep my arbitrary belief that failure is more informative than success.
• There’s vast uncertainty to any of our actions. We should be disciplined about how we build and use our models, but I wouldn’t dismiss the importance of spontaneous activity. I dislike the idea of holding it back, even when it’s obviously a missed hit.
Disclaimer: my comment is a bit spontaneous itself because of time constraint I’m facing. I’ll revise it later as the discussion unfolds. Thanks!
Thanks for raising this! We’re very interested in learning about the features you find exceptionally attractive in this sense. We use this to help us keep track of such ideas: https://feedback.eahub.org/. There’s also a roadmap here that represents a few of our best guesses: https://eahub.org/about/.
Hey Jeffrey, check out “EA Resources” by LEAN and fill in this form by CEA. You can also reach out to the local presence in Manila by writing manila@eahub.org. Good luck with growing your group!
Exciting! Congratulations and all the best, everyone!
Thanks, mingyuan!
It might be a good idea for LEAN, CEA, and LessWrong to get together and discuss this?
We actually did! With resources.eahub.org, we wanted to share LEAN’s idea of what texts you should look into when you’re a group organizer. We discussed this with our partners at CEA and decided that offering 2 perspectives is better than offering 1 and that we should work together on 2 independent products.
We figured out we don’t want the Resources to be a fixed, static list, but an open, collaborative platform. This way, you’re all invited to decide on its shape and content.
LEAN wants to make sure we only add features that offer a lot of value to the community, which is why we rely on your feedback. As a matter of fact, this is why we released this humble feature before the whole thing is ready.
The new Hub will come with a number of new features, some of which offer integration across multiple platforms like forum.effectivealtruism.org or www.lesswrong.com. One of those is a cross-platform search allowing for searching through a multitude of sources with a single search box [that can be implemented across multiple platforms].
Thanks for your feedback and stay tuned!
The primary reason was the stability of the old platform. We decided to not invest any more time in fixing it and move our resources to building the new version instead. We plan on releasing it within 2 weeks. Meanwhile, reach out to lean@eahub.org if there’s any way we can help!
Thank you for the question! Our plans for the next twelve months are avaialble in this section https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/iEep6WCzCG7QLkxp9/the-years-0-and-1-of-the-policy-entrepreneurship-network#Looking_forward. It’s probable that we will publish more on that in late Q4 2020 or early Q1 2021.
Hi Aaron, I’ve just sent the data again. I used the email address associated with your eahub.org account. Please, write us at contact@eahub.org in case you did not receive it by now.
There’s been another edition of the Effective Altruism Boot Camp held in Cracow, Poland. We have doubled in size and set off for regular project work. It’s thanks to many months of hard work of these folks: Aga Pisz, Aneta Błachewicz, Marcin Kowrygo, Marcin Woźniak. Thank you!
I do believe this is valid for the reasons you have brought up and also true on the market level. I would argue that a generic idea a firm can adopt as its own (own it) is more commercially attractive than a product explicitly corellated with an unmanageable social movement. The decision to move this product outside of our brand is small but important, and I opt for it.
The remaining question to everyone then is how to build and market that product? Wouldn’t the criteria of importance, tractability and uncrowdedness be a good start (as mentioned by William Saunders in this thread*) How to control the risks suggested by Tyler?
*https://www.facebook.com/groups/599554863520886/permalink/604519439691095/?qa_ref=qd?
Thanks for raising this! At LEAN, we’re making efforts to improve communication in this space. There’s this spreadsheet that will soon be integrated into the brand new eahub.org (which is a volunteer-driven project itself): goo.gl/6vQZVZ