The big deal is him being a high status outsider who made a contribution with a great deal of effort in it. It can be taken for granted that high-status insiders make many contributions.
It’s about a surrounding society’s measure of status, not about the community’s. Celebrity-outsiders (high status on the outside, indeterminate status on the inside) dropping in at Reddit often get a very positive reception for example. Random-person-outsiders (indeterminate status both outside and inside) get the random person outsider reception. The drop-in celebrities at Reddit probably don’t net the top ratings for the whole site, given how Reddit is huge, but a small forum that doesn’t have that much inside vote activity could easily end up treating an interesting high outside status person dropping in as the most interesting event in the forum history.
It’s about a surrounding society’s measure of status, not about the community’s.
I don’t think Holden Karnofsky is high status as far as society goes. Outside of people with interest in Effective Altruism he’s just a random person running an NGO.
Social status has many dimensions. Credible professionalism and a position to affect an organization with notable resources and visibility are pretty robust ones.
The big deal is him being a high status outsider who made a contribution with a great deal of effort in it. It can be taken for granted that high-status insiders make many contributions.
How many online community are there that considers outsiders to be high status to an extend that the highest rated post is by an outsider?
It’s about a surrounding society’s measure of status, not about the community’s. Celebrity-outsiders (high status on the outside, indeterminate status on the inside) dropping in at Reddit often get a very positive reception for example. Random-person-outsiders (indeterminate status both outside and inside) get the random person outsider reception. The drop-in celebrities at Reddit probably don’t net the top ratings for the whole site, given how Reddit is huge, but a small forum that doesn’t have that much inside vote activity could easily end up treating an interesting high outside status person dropping in as the most interesting event in the forum history.
I don’t think Holden Karnofsky is high status as far as society goes. Outside of people with interest in Effective Altruism he’s just a random person running an NGO.
Social status has many dimensions. Credible professionalism and a position to affect an organization with notable resources and visibility are pretty robust ones.
Givewell has 1 million in revenue per year. There are plenty of organisations of that size. I don’t think it’s a large amount of resources.