I think your third reason listed above makes a lot of presumptions about why the GWWC pledge is currently used as a key metric of GWWC and CEA. You appear to believe that the number of GWWC pledgers is currently being used as a catch-all proxy for the status of EA and its associated impact, which it isn’t. It makes perfect sense for GWWC (and by extension CEA) to use their own pledge figures as a metric for many purposes, including (but not limited to):
To generate interest in prospective new members of GWWC, or those who want to find out more, as a publicly displayed signal that GWWC is a growing community of real people who have made this commitment (e.g. on the GWWC site)
To current members of GWWC, who want to know about how the community is growing (e.g. on the GWWC site)
As an indicator of GWWC’s influence and visibility (e.g. in Will’s update)
Contrast this with the list in your third objection:
It does not account for the efficiency of donations
The GWWC membership figures make no pretense to account for the efficiency of donations. The actual efficiency of GWWC members’ donations is a topic that’s probably worth discussing in its own right.
it doesn’t account for amount of donations
GWWC separately lists the collective amount of donations that its members have made. Also, your assertion that “five small donors count more than one big donor” doesn’t make sense when you acknowledge that the number of GWWC members is an indication of community size/growth, and not a hard measure of impact. It seems uncomfortable to think of certain members ‘counting more’ than others in this context.
It doesn’t account for direct work
Again, irrelevant, as the pledge is about donations and not direct work. Potentially another discussion to be taken offline here though.
it creates a weird bias regarding timing
GWWC list both donations that have actually been made, and those that have only been pledged on their site. In this sense there is no confusion about what is being claimed in terms of impact, as a ‘pledged’ donation should only be interpreted as such. GWWC have also written in their past updates and reviews about how best to interpret their member retention and expected donations.
The number of GWWC members can be a useful metric for EA, but only when interpreted in the context of all the other activity taking place in the community. I don’t see a good case against the idea of the pledge because of this though.
I think your third reason listed above makes a lot of presumptions about why the GWWC pledge is currently used as a key metric of GWWC and CEA. You appear to believe that the number of GWWC pledgers is currently being used as a catch-all proxy for the status of EA and its associated impact, which it isn’t. It makes perfect sense for GWWC (and by extension CEA) to use their own pledge figures as a metric for many purposes, including (but not limited to):
To generate interest in prospective new members of GWWC, or those who want to find out more, as a publicly displayed signal that GWWC is a growing community of real people who have made this commitment (e.g. on the GWWC site)
To current members of GWWC, who want to know about how the community is growing (e.g. on the GWWC site)
As an indicator of GWWC’s influence and visibility (e.g. in Will’s update)
Contrast this with the list in your third objection:
The GWWC membership figures make no pretense to account for the efficiency of donations. The actual efficiency of GWWC members’ donations is a topic that’s probably worth discussing in its own right.
GWWC separately lists the collective amount of donations that its members have made. Also, your assertion that “five small donors count more than one big donor” doesn’t make sense when you acknowledge that the number of GWWC members is an indication of community size/growth, and not a hard measure of impact. It seems uncomfortable to think of certain members ‘counting more’ than others in this context.
Again, irrelevant, as the pledge is about donations and not direct work. Potentially another discussion to be taken offline here though.
GWWC list both donations that have actually been made, and those that have only been pledged on their site. In this sense there is no confusion about what is being claimed in terms of impact, as a ‘pledged’ donation should only be interpreted as such. GWWC have also written in their past updates and reviews about how best to interpret their member retention and expected donations.
The number of GWWC members can be a useful metric for EA, but only when interpreted in the context of all the other activity taking place in the community. I don’t see a good case against the idea of the pledge because of this though.