I’ve been using the Effective Altruism Forum more frequently than I have LessWrong for at least the past year. I’ve noticed it’s not particularly heavily moderated. I mean, one thing is effective altruism is mediated both primarily through in-person communities, and social media. So, most of the drama occurring in EA occurs there, and works itself out before it gets to the EA Forum.
Still, though, the EA Forum seems to have a high level of quality content, but without as much active moderation necessary. The site doesn’t get as much traffic as LW ever did. The topics covered are much more diverse: while LW covered things like AI safety, metacognition and transhumanism, all that and every other cause in EA is game for the EA Forum[1]. From my perspective, though, it’s far and away host to the highest-quality content in the EA community. So, if anyone else here also finds that to be the case: what makes EA unlike LW in not needing as many moderators on its forum.
(Personally, I expect most of the explanatory power comes from the hypothesis the sorts of discussions which would need to be moderated are filtered out before they get to the EA Forum, and the academic tone set in EA conduce people to posting more detailed writing.)
[1] I abbreviate “Effective Altruism Forum” as “EA Forum”, rather than “EAF”, as EAF is the acronym of the Effective Altruism Foundation, an organization based out of Switzerland. I don’t want people to get confused between the two.
The EA forum has less of a reputation, so knowing about it selects better for various virtues
Interest in altruism probably correlates with pro-social behavior in general, e.g. netiquette
The EA forum doesn’t have the “this site is about rationality, I have opinions and I agree with them, so they’re rational, so I should post about them here” problem
I’ve been using the Effective Altruism Forum more frequently than I have LessWrong for at least the past year. I’ve noticed it’s not particularly heavily moderated. I mean, one thing is effective altruism is mediated both primarily through in-person communities, and social media. So, most of the drama occurring in EA occurs there, and works itself out before it gets to the EA Forum.
Still, though, the EA Forum seems to have a high level of quality content, but without as much active moderation necessary. The site doesn’t get as much traffic as LW ever did. The topics covered are much more diverse: while LW covered things like AI safety, metacognition and transhumanism, all that and every other cause in EA is game for the EA Forum[1]. From my perspective, though, it’s far and away host to the highest-quality content in the EA community. So, if anyone else here also finds that to be the case: what makes EA unlike LW in not needing as many moderators on its forum.
(Personally, I expect most of the explanatory power comes from the hypothesis the sorts of discussions which would need to be moderated are filtered out before they get to the EA Forum, and the academic tone set in EA conduce people to posting more detailed writing.)
[1] I abbreviate “Effective Altruism Forum” as “EA Forum”, rather than “EAF”, as EAF is the acronym of the Effective Altruism Foundation, an organization based out of Switzerland. I don’t want people to get confused between the two.
Some guesses:
The EA forum has less of a reputation, so knowing about it selects better for various virtues
Interest in altruism probably correlates with pro-social behavior in general, e.g. netiquette
The EA forum doesn’t have the “this site is about rationality, I have opinions and I agree with them, so they’re rational, so I should post about them here” problem