[reputation and popularity] probably have overlapping causes and effects, but they’re not the same.
I’m inclined to think that this is a distinction without a difference, but I’m open to having my mind changed on this. Can you expand on this point further? I’m struggling to model what an organization that has a good reputation but is unpopular, or vice versa, might look like.
If EA as a whole is unpopular, that’s also going to cause problems for well-reputed EA orgs.
Yes, I think that’s the important part, even though you’re right that we can’t do much about individual orgs choosing to associate itself with EA branding.
This feels vague and not very well pinned down, but:
I think a large part of it is the difference between “how positively do people feel about you” (popularity) and “how confidently can people predict what you’ll do” (reputation). Of course both of these also depend on “what people/organizations are we even talking about here”.
So when NIMBYs don’t want to fight you, that feels like a combination of
The NIMBYs themselves probably quite like you
The NIMBYs know lots of other people like you, and don’t want to be seen fighting someone popular
both of which are because you’re popular with the general public, and I can imagine you being popular with the general public even if you’re incompetent at your relations with other organizations.
But when your dealings with government get fast-tracked, that’s probably also related to people at city hall thinking well of you. But it also seems to me that a lot of it is “we know what happens when these people get to do the thing they’re asking to do”. And I can imagine that being the case even if the general public basically doesn’t know you, or doesn’t like you.
(“Reputation” doesn’t feel like quite the word for that, because I’m more imagining it being a “you have a history of working with us” thing than a “we heard about you from someone else you worked with” thing.)
I’m inclined to think that this is a distinction without a difference, but I’m open to having my mind changed on this. Can you expand on this point further? I’m struggling to model what an organization that has a good reputation but is unpopular, or vice versa, might look like.
Yes, I think that’s the important part, even though you’re right that we can’t do much about individual orgs choosing to associate itself with EA branding.
This feels vague and not very well pinned down, but:
I think a large part of it is the difference between “how positively do people feel about you” (popularity) and “how confidently can people predict what you’ll do” (reputation). Of course both of these also depend on “what people/organizations are we even talking about here”.
So when NIMBYs don’t want to fight you, that feels like a combination of
The NIMBYs themselves probably quite like you
The NIMBYs know lots of other people like you, and don’t want to be seen fighting someone popular
both of which are because you’re popular with the general public, and I can imagine you being popular with the general public even if you’re incompetent at your relations with other organizations.
But when your dealings with government get fast-tracked, that’s probably also related to people at city hall thinking well of you. But it also seems to me that a lot of it is “we know what happens when these people get to do the thing they’re asking to do”. And I can imagine that being the case even if the general public basically doesn’t know you, or doesn’t like you.
(“Reputation” doesn’t feel like quite the word for that, because I’m more imagining it being a “you have a history of working with us” thing than a “we heard about you from someone else you worked with” thing.)