Toby Tremlett🔹

DIY de­bate week (April 28 - May 2nd)

EA Or­ga­ni­za­tion Up­dates: April 2025

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 10, 2025, 5:27 PM

  6 points

  1 ∶ 1

  in reply to: VettedCauses’s comment on: Re­quest for Guidance: Fol­low­ing Timeline After Char­ity Didn’t Object

  Again I’d say it depends on whether anything bad happens the longer you wait—I’d personally want to make sure I’d got feedback from Sinergia before I published. Sounds like they are quite happy to look at it with a fairly short turnaround, but my first step would be to send the piece to them and ask them how long they need to properly respond to it.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 10, 2025, 2:01 PM

  4 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: VettedCauses’s comment on: Re­quest for Guidance: Fol­low­ing Timeline After Char­ity Didn’t Object

  

  Maybe I am misunderstanding, I took this email as saying that you were sending them the post before posting in order for them to review, and clarify anything that needs clarifying (I also understand this as the point of sending the article for their review anyway- doesn’t seem like there is much point if they don’t have time to respond?)

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 10, 2025, 12:49 PM

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: VettedCauses’s comment on: Re­quest for Guidance: Fol­low­ing Timeline After Char­ity Didn’t Object

  The assumption is that since you are asking for their response, it’s in their court to tell you how long a response would take. Maybe that’s wrong, and you didn’t mind whether or not they had time to send you a response, but that’s the implication of their email.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 10, 2025, 12:34 PM

  7 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: VettedCauses’s comment on: Re­quest for Guidance: Fol­low­ing Timeline After Char­ity Didn’t Object

  Here’s the request you’re looking for:

  

  “after reviewing them, we will inform you of the time required to provide our response”.

  A couple other points in response:

  • “If 24 hours was sufficient for our volunteers, we believed it would be fair for Sinergia as well.” feels like a false equivalency. They have many other pressing priorities, and responding to your criticisms takes time and probably knowledge of multiple programmes, which might take time to coordinate.

  • Some of your email communications came across as pretty hostile (or at least low-trust), and some were friendly and collaborative. I think this might explain some of the differences in how people respond to you. For example, the email before the call where you asked for written consent from all participants seemed like a very low-trust and (if you were already inclined to think that way, as someone who had received critique may be) hostile move. When journalists (who are a good model here) write articles, they often allow interviews ‘on background’ (i.e. interviews where they can use the context they learn, but not name or quote the source). I’d personally recommend that in a case like this—otherwise the interviewee won’t be able to speak freely/​ correct themselves etc… in fear of being taken out of context. I think you’ll get a better response from organisations if you adopted more of a vibe of ‘trust but verify’ rather than the current position, which seems to begin by assuming bad faith (whether you actually do or not, this is the vibe).

  [edited because I published with half a sentence at the end] Also, wanted to add that again, I’m very glad that you’re responding to the opinions of others on this, and giving Sinergia more time to respond. Thanks again for being open to changing your mind.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 10, 2025, 9:20 AM

  5 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Mo Putera’s comment on: Mo Putera’s Quick takes

  I love that there is a disagree react: “hmm… no, seems like the most cost-effective economic growth boosting intervention is not in fact cat mascots”

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 10, 2025, 9:03 AM

  12 points

  3 ∶ 0

  on: Re­quest for Guidance: Fol­low­ing Timeline After Char­ity Didn’t Object

  Hi VettedCauses. (Disclaimer: not posting this as a mod, though I am one).
  
  The 24-hour deadline doesn’t seem ideal from your perspective or from theirs. The benefit of sharing a draft with a charity is two-directional: you learn further context which can stop you from publishing uninformed arguments/​ make your case stronger and they get to respond in a timely manner (ideally at the same time the critique is published) meaning that your critiques will be more likely to be taken constructively. I get the impression that you are underweighting the benefits to you. 24 hours is very short notice for a busy charity, and barely gives them more notice than just publishing the post. To get the benefits of sharing the draft, I’d strongly recommend (as Jason also suggests in the comments) liaising with the charity to find out how long they need to respond appropriately before you publish.
  
  Unless there is something in the post which needs to be urgently announced (i.e. it’s particularly action-relevant in the next couple of days) or holding off for longer seriously decreases the odds of you publishing the critique at all, I don’t see the case for publishing now without feedback.

  PS—thank you for being open to changing your approach with these articles. It’s really important to have independent and thoughtful evaluations of charities (it’s part of what we are here for), and I’m grateful that you’re willing to adjust your methods based on feedback from the Forum readers and the charities.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 7, 2025, 3:15 PM

  7 points

  2 ∶ 0

  in reply to: SiebeRozendal’s comment on: Sie­beRozen­dal’s Shortform

  This is something we should think about more as a mod team- I’ll discuss it with them.

  Our current politics policy is still this. But it arguably wasn’t designed with our current situation in mind. In my view, it’d be a bad thing if discussions on the Forum became too tied to the news cycle (It generally seems true that once something is on the news, you are at least several years too late to change it), our impact has historically not been had by working in the most politically salient areas (neglectedness isn’t a perfect proxy but it still matters). However, it’d also be wrong if the Forum couldn’t discuss politically salient issues while they are going on, and there is something readers could do to stop them.

  FWIW in this particular situation (and I haven’t conferred with the mod team) I don’t see this thread as being against Forum rules, because the participants could reasonably believe (or for that matter, not believe) that preventing authoritarian takeover in the US is a relevant cause area to EA.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 7, 2025, 2:30 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: NickLaing’s comment on: to­bytrem’s Quick takes

  To be clear—which some people appreciate:

  • I disagree reacted because I don’t support you falling off a motorcycle.

  • I laugh reacted because that’s quite funny.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 4, 2025, 2:34 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Jeroen De Ryck 🔹’s comment on: Jeroen De Ryck’s Quick takes

  Thanks for giving feedback! I looked at this particular quick take again before April Fool’s to make sure we’d fixed the issue. Thanks to @JP Addison🔸 for writing the code to make the tags visible.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 4, 2025, 11:07 AM

  25 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: to­bytrem’s Quick takes

  You guys overused the button… so we’re putting Bulby on bed rest for a bit.
  
  Look at the poor guy:
  

  

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 4, 2025, 8:37 AM

  11 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: AnonymousEAForumAccount’s comment on: Ste­ward­ship: CEA’s 2025-26 strat­egy to reach and raise EA’s ceiling

  Hey! I’m the current staff-member working on the EA Newsletter—and I’m currently working on the EA Newsletter improvement project we didn’t have time for before. So far this has been:

  • Making the EA Newsletter sign-up box more prominent in a few places (EA.org and CEA.org) + adding a link to the EA reddit side-panel (surprisingly big community).

  • Making the sign-up flow single-opt-in.

  • Designing better metrics to track impact and growth.

  • Re-writing the intro email campaign people get when they sign up and A/​B testing it—this started recently so no new findings yet, but we should have info to improve it at the end of the month.

  The next step is more seriously thinking about marketing, considering advertising it, integrating it more with other CEA touchpoints etc… Stay tuned.
  
  Also, I always welcome any suggestions for low-hanging fruit in Newsletter marketing (I’m sure there is a lot of this), as well as general feedback on the Newsletter itself.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 2, 2025, 2:51 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Toby Tremlett🔹’s comment on: Open thread: April—June 2025

  You can find some more related groups here.

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 2, 2025, 2:50 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Toby Tremlett🔹’s comment on: Open thread: April—June 2025

  Ah—I do however see that they are focused on physical engineers, and your blog is for software engineers. Maybe I was mislead by an ambiguous term

• Toby Tremlett🔹Apr 2, 2025, 2:48 PM

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Antony Henao’s comment on: Open thread: April—June 2025

  No worries! Hope it’s useful. Looks as if they could benefit from your expertise :)

• Toby Tremlett🔹 2 Apr 2025 14:40 UTC

  2 points

  1 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Antony Henao’s comment on: Open thread: April—June 2025

  Hey Antony!
  Do you know about High Impact Engineers? Also, welcome to the Forum! I’m here if you have any questions,
  Toby (Content Manager for the EA Forum)

• Toby Tremlett🔹 2 Apr 2025 14:38 UTC

  2 points

  0 ∶ 0

  in reply to: Dee Tomic’s comment on: Open thread: April—June 2025

  That’s awesome to hear Dee! I’m the Forum’s Content Manager, let me know if you want help finding anything, answering any questions, etc… :)

• Toby Tremlett🔹 2 Apr 2025 9:20 UTC

  16 points

  2 ∶ 0

  on: to­bytrem’s Quick takes

  For those among us who want to get straight back to business—I’ve tagged (I think) all the april fools posts, so you can now filter them out of your frontpage if you prefer by adding the “April Fools’ Day” tag under the “Customize feed” button at the top of the frontpage, and changing the filter to hidden.

  

  

• Toby Tremlett🔹 2 Apr 2025 9:17 UTC

  6 points

  1 ∶ 0

  on: (Fo­rum) Ap­pre­ci­a­tion Thread

  Thanks for making this thread!
  So much to be grateful for. One thing that often brings me joy is the fantastic content that people write for the Forum, even when it benefits the community far more than it benefits them. There are definitely personal gains to be had by writing on the Forum, but a lot of great work is done from a position of altruism as well. I get a lot of job satisfaction from seeing great discussion on the Forum, whether it’s during an event or just a random week. Maybe this is a bit too generic—but I think the quantity of great content on this Forum is kind of ridiculous when you zoom out a bit, and I won’t stop being grateful for it (and looking the gifthorse straight in the mouth by trying to get more).