EA organizations frequently ask for people to run criticism by them ahead of time. I’ve been wary of the push for this norm. My big concerns were that orgs wouldn’t comment until a post was nearly done, and that it would take a lot of time. My recent post mentioned a lot of people and organizations, so it seemed like useful data.
I reached out to 12 email addresses, plus one person in FB DMs and one open call for information on a particular topic. This doesn’t quite match what you see in the post because some people/orgs were used more than once, and other mentions were cut. The post was in a fairly crude state when I sent it out.
Of those 14: 10 had replied by the start of next day. More than half of those replied within a few hours. I expect this was faster than usual because no one had more than a few paragraphs relevant to them or their org, but is still impressive.
It’s hard to say how sending an early draft changed things. Austin Chen got some extra anxiety joked about being anxious because their paragraph was full of TODOs (because it was positive and I hadn’t worked as hard fleshing out the positive mentions ahead of time). Turns out they were fine but then I was worried I’d stressed them out. I could maybe have saved myself one stressful interaction if I’d realized I was going to cut an example ahead of time
Only 80,000 Hours, Anima International, and GiveDirectly failed to respond before publication (7 days after I emailed them).
I didn’t keep as close track of changes, but at a minimum replies led to 2 examples being removed entirely, 2 clarifications and some additional information that made the post better. So overall I’m very glad I solicited comments, and found the process easier than expected.
One person got some extra anxiety because their paragraph was full of TODOs (because it was positive and I hadn’t worked as hard fleshing out the positive mentions ahead of time).
I think you’re talking about me? I may have miscommunicated; I was ~zero anxious, instead trying to signal that I’d looked over the doc as requested, and poking some fun at the TODOs.
FWIW I appreciated your process for running criticism ahead of time (and especially enjoyed the back-and-forth comments on the doc; I’m noticing that those kinds of conversations on a private GDoc seem somehow more vibrant/nicer than the ones on LW or on a blog’s comments.)
Well in that case I was the one who was unnecessarily anxious so still feels like a cost, although one well worth paying to get the information faster.
While writing the email to give mentioned people and orgs a chance to comment, I wasn’t sure whether to BCC (more risk of going to spam) or CCed (shares their email). I took a FB poll, which got responses from the class of people who might receive emails like this, but not the specific people I emailed. Of the responses, 6 said CC and one said either. I also didn’t receive any objections from the people I actually emailed. So seems like CCing is fine.
EA organizations frequently ask for people to run criticism by them ahead of time. I’ve been wary of the push for this norm. My big concerns were that orgs wouldn’t comment until a post was nearly done, and that it would take a lot of time. My recent post mentioned a lot of people and organizations, so it seemed like useful data.
I reached out to 12 email addresses, plus one person in FB DMs and one open call for information on a particular topic. This doesn’t quite match what you see in the post because some people/orgs were used more than once, and other mentions were cut. The post was in a fairly crude state when I sent it out.
Of those 14: 10 had replied by the start of next day. More than half of those replied within a few hours. I expect this was faster than usual because no one had more than a few paragraphs relevant to them or their org, but is still impressive.
It’s hard to say how sending an early draft changed things. Austin Chen
got some extra anxietyjoked about being anxious because their paragraph was full of TODOs (because it was positive and I hadn’t worked as hard fleshing out the positive mentions ahead of time). Turns out they were fine but then I was worried I’d stressed them out. I could maybe have saved myself one stressful interaction if I’d realized I was going to cut an example ahead of timeOnly 80,000 Hours, Anima International, and GiveDirectly failed to respond before publication (7 days after I emailed them).
I didn’t keep as close track of changes, but at a minimum replies led to 2 examples being removed entirely, 2 clarifications and some additional information that made the post better. So overall I’m very glad I solicited comments, and found the process easier than expected.
I think you’re talking about me? I may have miscommunicated; I was ~zero anxious, instead trying to signal that I’d looked over the doc as requested, and poking some fun at the TODOs.
FWIW I appreciated your process for running criticism ahead of time (and especially enjoyed the back-and-forth comments on the doc; I’m noticing that those kinds of conversations on a private GDoc seem somehow more vibrant/nicer than the ones on LW or on a blog’s comments.)
Well in that case I was the one who was unnecessarily anxious so still feels like a cost, although one well worth paying to get the information faster.
While writing the email to give mentioned people and orgs a chance to comment, I wasn’t sure whether to BCC (more risk of going to spam) or CCed (shares their email). I took a FB poll, which got responses from the class of people who might receive emails like this, but not the specific people I emailed. Of the responses, 6 said CC and one said either. I also didn’t receive any objections from the people I actually emailed. So seems like CCing is fine.