How to use the Forum

By Julia_Wise🔸, Aaron Gertler 🔸 @ 2018-09-05T17:22 (+99)

As of April 2022, this has been replaced by the new "How to use the Forum" sequence. 

If any information on this page seems inaccurate, or you think we should add something that isn't here, please let us know. Thanks!

Effective altruism is a joint effort. Our goal is to make the EA Forum the central place for collaborative discussion about how to do the most good we can.

What we're aiming for

What we encourage

• Writing that is accurate, kind, and relevant to the discussion at hand.
• Scout mindset: "The drive not to make one idea win or another lose, but to see what's there as honestly and accurately as you can."
  • See Vaidehi Agarwalla for more on this idea
• Clarity about what you believe, your reasons for believing it, and what would cause you to change your mind.
• Making concrete predictions where possible.
  • For example, instead of saying "we should fund X," you might say "I think funding X would lead to Y or Z, as long as Q doesn't happen."
  • Even if you're highly uncertain, making a prediction lets you add nuance to your views and gives people a better sense of how to interpret your claims.
• Including a summary at the top of your post so that readers can easily understand your main points.
  • We like this example of how to format brief highlights and this example of a longer summary.
  • Summaries become more useful the longer your post is, and aren’t very important for posts that can be read within a few minutes.
• Emphasizing any action items to increase the chance that your post has the intended impact.
  • For example, if you want people to take a survey, link it at the beginning of your post in addition to the end.

What we don't worry about

• Polish: We'd rather see an idea presented imperfectly than not see it at all.
  • If a post is especially rough, brief, or exploratory, consider making it a Shortform post.
  • You can help people understand how you feel about an idea by using an "epistemic status" — that is, noting how certain/serious you are at the beginning. See Gwern's confidence tags for an example of this.

What we discourage (and may delete)

• Unnecessary rudeness or offensiveness
• Materials advocating major harm or illegal activities
• Information hazards that concern us
• Any commercial messaging not related to EA
• Spam
• Other behavior that interferes with good discourse

If we remove content you've shared, we'll alert you to this. We're open to discussing how something broke our rules and whether a revised version might be fine to publish.

List of moderator comments

For more on how we moderate, see our list of past moderator comments.

Other advice

• When you disagree with someone, approach it with curiosity: try to work out why they think what they think, and what you can learn from each other.
• When you criticize someone's point, consider doing so supportively.
• Consider taking a discussion private if you want a higher-bandwidth discussion and/or want to resolve a misunderstanding.
• Try to focus on important questions, and the important parts of important questions, to keep content useful and to the point.
• If you see something that you think breaks the Forum's rules or is otherwise inappropriate for the site, you can report it.

Why you — yes, you — should post on the Forum

Many new Forum users, and even longtime readers, report feeling nervous about publishing a post or writing a comment. The EA community has a lot of sharp writers and thinkers, and it can be daunting to submit your work alongside theirs.

In our experience, most people overestimate how strict the Forum is. A wide range of ideas could be the basis for a good post. And as we noted above, unpolished ideas are welcome!

Want to start small? Consider writing a Shortform post or leaving a comment in our latest Open Thread. You could also start by telling someone you liked their post; friendly comments are always welcome!

For more on how to come up with post ideas and get feedback, check out this talk by Aaron Gertler, who was the Forum's lead moderator at the time.

Finding content

All posts

Access every post in the Forum's history, with lots of ways to filter and sort.

Frontpage posts

Most posts will appear in this section, which resides on the front page of the Forum. If a post does not, one of the following things happened:

• The author asked moderators not to feature it on the front page.
• Moderators felt that the post was a better fit for the "personal blog" category.

You can still see those posts by changing the "personal blog" filter on the frontpage (see below).

If you don't want one of your posts to appear on the front page, un-check the box marked "Moderators may promote..." before you publish.

Community posts

Posts that focus on the EA community itself are given a "community" tag. By default, these posts will have a weighting of "-25" on the Forum's front page (see below), appearing only if they have a lot of upvotes. You can change how these posts are displayed by using...

Tag filters

You can choose to weight certain tags on the front page. If you give a tag a positive weighting, posts with that tag will show up more prominently, and vice-versa if you give a negative weighting. You can also totally hide all posts with a given tag.

Personal blog posts

Posts that are about topics outside of effective altruism, or aren't clearly related to doing good effectively, will be placed in the "personal blog" category.

These posts will still be visible in "Recent Discussion", on the "All Posts" page, and on your profile, but they will be hidden by default in the "Frontpage Posts" section. (Users can change their filters to view "personal blog" posts in that section.)

Following users

Love someone's work? Click their username and you'll see the option to "subscribe to this user's posts." You'll then see their new posts in your notification area.

Prizewinning posts

The EA Forum Prize is awarded to posts and comments that exemplify the kind of content we most want to see on the Forum. If you want to see some of the Forum’s best content, this is a good place to start!

Writing content

You can make a new post by clicking on your username in the upper right and selecting “New Post.”

You can use posts to jot quick ideas, to publish polished research, or anything in between.

Posts appear higher up on the front page the newer they are and the more karma they have.

Getting your first post or comment approved

Your first post or comment won't show up right away. As an anti-spam measure, one of the Forum's moderators will check the first post or comment from each new user before automatically approving their future posts and comments.

If more than 24 hours pass and you still don't see your post or comment, please contact the moderation team (forum@effectivealtruism.org).

Link posts

You can link to content from other sites by selecting the link icon in the post editor: 

When you post links, please add an excerpt or write a summary of the content to encourage discussion.

Shortform posts

Do you have an idea so strange or uncertain that you’re not sure whether to post about it? Do you have something to share, but not the time to write about it in detail?

Shortform posts are built for these cases — they represent “exploratory, draft-stage, rough, and off-the-cuff thoughts.” They let you shove an idea out into the world with minimal fuss. (If you’re still confused, that link has lots of examples.)

If you select “New Shortform” rather than “New Post,” you’ll create a Shortform post that will be visible on your personal Shortform page (and the Shortform homepage), but won’t appear on the list of posts at the top of the Forum's homepage.

Question posts

You can select "Ask Question" from the main menu to create a "question post." These have a slightly different format which separates answers from discussion about the post. They work for any question, but we hope they'll be especially useful to people who are new to effective altruism and want to learn more.

(It's totally fine to ask basic questions about EA concepts, even if you think they might have simple answers! The Forum is meant to be a resource for the whole community, including people at any level of experience.)

Using the content editor

Choosing an editor

The Forum currently offers two ways to create and format a post. You can select your editor by checking or unchecking "Activate Markdown Editor" in your settings.

Our non-Markdown editor offers a "what you see is what you get" interface and is generally the best way to format posts. It offers support for image uploading, code blocks, LaTeX, tables, and many other options.

Our Markdown editor is necessary if you want to include footnotes in your post, and could make it easier to import posts from other text editors.

Adding co-authors to a post

(Only available to accounts with >100 karma.) The "options" menu lets you add one or more co-authors for your post:

Only the primary author will be able to edit a post. If you want to work collaboratively with others on a piece of writing, we suggest keeping it in a shared editor like Google Docs until it's ready to publish.

Getting help and feedback on your writing

You can get feedback on drafts you've written, or ideas you’ve had for a post, from Aaron Gertler. [NOTE: Currently suspended.]

You can also submit your post to the Effective Altruism Editing and Review group on Facebook to get feedback from more people.

Karma

When you vote on posts and comments, you give their authors karma points (or remove points if you downvote). By default, higher-rated posts are more visible. 

For content you think is especially good or bad, you can give a “strong upvote” or “strong downvote” by clicking and holding (or double-tapping on mobile). 

As you get more karma, your votes will begin to award more karma.

You don’t need any karma to post, comment, or vote.

Voting norms

We encourage you to leave constructive feedback about what was helpful or unhelpful about the material you’re voting on:

“That example helped clear things up for me.”

“I didn’t find this relevant.”

“Mass voting” on many instances of a user’s content simply because it belongs to that user is not permitted. Please judge each post or comment on its own merits.

Aside from mass voting, you can vote using any other criteria you choose. If it helps, you could consider these recommendations from a forum which uses the same voting system. Here’s an edited excerpt:

Conversational Flow (normal votes): Use normal votes when you like (or dislike) the effect a comment has on a conversation.

• “Ah, good point.” (+)
• “Hmm. This gives me something to think about.” (+)
• “Thanks for citing your sources!” (+)
• “I think this contains an error.” (-)
• “This is technically fine, but annoying to read.” (-)
• “I don’t think you’re being very charitable.” (-)

Important Content (strong votes): Use strong votes when you think other people should go out of their way to read something (or definitely avoid it).

• “I learned something new and useful.” (++)
• “The argumentation or thought process here improved the way I think.” (++)
• “This contains many factual errors or a lot of bad reasoning.” (--)
• “This is literally spam.” (--)

Your profile

Consider writing a Forum bio

Your bio lets other users know more about you. To edit it, click your username in the upper right and select “User Profile.” See this post for ideas on writing a bio.

Rules for pseudonymous and multiple accounts

Sometimes, it feels easier to express yourself when you are anonymous, especially if your opinion is controversial or unpopular. We allow people to create pseudonymous accounts, and you can have more than one account.

However, anonymity also has downsides. To counter them, we have the following rules:

1. You can't impersonate other people. This includes famous people who were alive in the 21st century.
2. You can't vote multiple times for the same post or comment.
3. You can't use multiple accounts to express the same opinion multiple times.

In general, we think that real names are good for community bonding, and we encourage you to use yours. But it's not required.

Moderators

The current moderators (as of February 2022) are Julia Wise, Edo Arad, Vaidehi Agarwalla, JP Addison, and Lizka Vaintrob. The moderation team uses the email address forum-moderation@effectivealtruism.org. Please feel free to contact us with questions or feedback.

Moderators can access:

• The IP address a post/comment came from
• The voting history of users
• The identity of voters on any given post/comment

This information will only be used to identify behavior such as "sockpuppet" accounts and mass downvoting. The moderators will not view or use this information for any other purpose.

Reporting something to the moderators

If a post or comment looks like spam, or otherwise seems to violate the Forum’s rules, you can report it by clicking the “...” next to the post/comment, like this:

It’s okay to report something, even if you aren’t sure it broke any rules! It’s better for the moderators to know about it so that we can make a decision. 

If someone sends you a private message that makes you uncomfortable, contact:

• The moderation team, for messages you don’t mind sharing with a group of people — for example, if someone says something rude or sends you spam.
• Our contact person (currently Julia Wise), for sensitive or interpersonal problems — for example, if someone makes a threat against you, or seems to be experiencing a mental health crisis.

Support

To report a bug, contact us through Intercom (the chat window in the corner of your screen) or send an email to forum@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.

To suggest a feature, write a comment on the Feature Suggestion Thread. We see every comment someone posts, and we’ll reply if the feature gets implemented.

Credits

Thanks to the team at LessWrong for creating the framework we use for the Forum, and for continuing to add new functionality.

HoratioVonBecker @ 2022-01-17T08:31 (+1)

Okay. Biggest concern: If this is meant to be forum rules, it's not where it needs to be. I have not seen a TOS or a set of rules before I got an account, and as a forum veteran I was looking for those.

Second-biggest concern:  Social norms are not universal. Netiquette varies by website. What exactly do you mean by 'rude'?

Finally, this looks like it could be compressed a lot. (Bolding sections so you can skim more easily is actually a bad sign.) I like rules a lot better if they're concise - fitting into one screen.

Aaron Gertler @ 2022-01-17T09:29 (+5)

(Note: No longer a moderator, just thinking out loud.)

If this is meant to be forum rules, it's not where it needs to be. I have not seen a TOS or a set of rules before I got an account, and as a forum veteran I was looking for those.

The "About the Forum" page is linked from the main menu, which appears on every page of the Forum. I assume that the title made it sound like it wasn't worth checking to look for rules, which is helpful to know.

Things that could make the rules easier to find, in case moderators want to try a change:

• Adding hover text to the "About the Forum" page, as some of the other menu links have, which specifies that rules are here
• Splitting the rules onto their own page (which could be a natural transition if we eventually set up a more comprehensive guide to editing than we now have)

Social norms are not universal. Netiquette varies by website. What exactly do you mean by 'rude'?

Are there any sites that you think do a good job of defining terms like "rude"?

I checked a few places with good reputations. Here's r/ChangeMyView, which keeps things really simple but has flourished nonetheless:

Here's Hacker News, which offers more specific advice than the above, but generally seems to be at a similar level of specificity/simplicity to the EA Forum:

Quora has this, and is much more thorough than the Forum (the "Be Nice, Be Respectful" page is very detailed). 

Do you favor something like their approach? It's more "universal", maybe, but also much less concise — and it seems like those things will always trade off with each other.

HoratioVonBecker @ 2022-01-22T01:56 (+3)

Even a scrollover requires that the user be actively trying to explore the site on a meta level - and the mobile-based UX has made finding the sitenav bar a nontrivial endeavor! I would at least put it as the 'before you start typing' background.

r/ChangeMyView is, by its' very subject, going to dodge most of the reasons a forum would need to enforce policies like this. The approach also seems quite dependent on moderators.

Hacker News has the best debate policy I've ever seen. I do have a soft spot for snark, but I can live without it. Thank you for introducing me to it!

Quora looks so elitist. 'Correct' grammar and punctuation? No-explanation 'hate speech'? Also, most of their content policy is only incorporated by linking it, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. (I'm the sort of person who tries to actually read any contract I agree to, and lying about how long the TOS is feels so disrespectful.)

This was very interesting, thank you!