Talk:Effective altruism/Archive 1

Cause selection section
Hi I have edited the section on cause selection

The old section was incorrect because:
 * it implied that cause selection is about choosing between non-profits in the sentence "Though there is a growing emphasis on effectiveness and evidence among nonprofits"
 * it implied that choosing to prevent suffering over choosing to prevent death etc is not part of cause selection in the sentence "Effective altruists attempt to choose the most effective causes based on broad values such as preventing suffering" However even this decison should be part of an effective altruists cause selection
 * It underplayed cause selection which is actually the key element of effective altruism

Sources: http://effective-altruism.com/what-effective-altruism explains effective altruism entirl in reference to cause selction

It is possible that someone has misunderstood what I mean by cause selection in which case more clarity is needed but within the effective altruist community i believe i am using the standard definition.

Weeatquince (talk) 22:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)weeatquince

Definition? Difference from high impact philanthropy?
Our definition of effective altruism gave me a good idea of what it means, but looking at it again, I'm not sure I get it perfectly. Is efficiency in altruism a "philosophy" or a "social movement"? I don't consider my efficiency in my job as a "philosophy" or as a "career movement". Why would we call efficiency in this particular area as a philosophy?


 * To rekindle that, but is this philosophy or a movement? If it is philosophy, it might be better to put it as a sub-section to some form of consequentialism. Both Singer and Kagan are generally considered to be consequentialists. Paedans (talk) 23:31, 27 November 2014 (UTC)paedans

The rest of the article also confused me, particularly the Lifestyle section. Why would effective altruism force me to live frugally? If I'm an ineffective altruist, becoming an effective altruist shouldn't require me to do much more efforts. Shouldn't it simply change the results of my altruism?

Effectively, what I'm asking is what we should compare effective altruism with. If we compare it with (ineffective) altruism, the Lifestyle section in particular needs to be revisited. If we compare with egoism, than we should reword the lead, which "distinguishes effective altruism from traditional altruism or charity".

Finally, high impact philanthropy is very similar to what I thought effective altruism meant. The article currently sounds as if high impact philanthropy was restricted to money donations, but philanthropy is not just about giving money. According to the last paragraph of Philanthropy's lead, philanthropy and charity are sometimes considered as 2 types of altruism, philanthropy being a long-term approach. This would suggest that effective philanthropy (high impact philanthropy) could be a particular type of effective altruism, but I rather understand effective altruism as a synonym of philanthropy (as the quote above says, distinguished "from traditional altruism or charity"). I read an implication in the quote that traditional altruism is charity while "modern" (scientific, effective?) altruism should be philanthropy. --Chealer (talk) 18:21, 3 August 2013 (UTC)


 * As far as I can tell, EA is about charitable donations, and only about charitable donations - David Gerard (talk) 13:33, 30 April 2014 (UTC)


 * As one of the co-founders of the Centre for Effective Altruism, we try to define effective altruism as being far wider than being purely about charity, but also including everything from policy advocacy to first-order work to research and innovation. For example, 80,000 Hours, which is linked to in this article, is about maximising your social impact with your choice of career.  While earning-to-give is one of the options they discuss, they also advocate for a wide range of other career options: http://80000hours.org/blog/314-in-which-career-can-you-make-the-most-difference    They also discuss policy advocacy at length: http://80000hours.org/blog?category=28  It is unfair to say that effective altruism is purely about charity.  At EffectiveAltruism.org, effective altruism is defined as: "the idea of aiming to do the most good that one can. It involves:
 * i) Being open to all the possible ways to do good and pursuing the path with the biggest positive impact;
 * ii) Using evidence to figure out how to do the most good; and
 * iii) Choosing to make altruism an important part of one’s life."
 * There is no mention of charity here. As I am involved with this topic professionally, please could someone without professional involvement make this edit? Niel.Bowerman (talk) 16:02, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * So far as I can see, the same groups use all three terms effective altruism, effective giving, and high impact philanthropy, so there are probably no sociolectal differences between them—they are more likely semantic ones. Effective altruism strikes me as the most encompassing term, and it’s maybe also among the newer ones. A descriptive analysis of the differences would be helpful, I think. —Telofy (talk) 04:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * It would seem good to delete the page on effective philanthropy then? RyanCarey1 (talk) 15:27, 13 April 2015 (UTC)


 * & I created a merge request. Please move all relevant contents from the other article over here. It'll be deleted afterwards. --Fixuture (talk) 13:13, 24 May 2015 (UTC)


 * There appears to be consensus on the merge. Anyone happy to volunteer to implement it? Nkn7391 (talk) 17:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I'll go through it this weekend. I have familiarity with the topic, I briefly looked over high impact philanthropy, and I don't expect it to contain much worthwhile material not already in effective altruism. As far as I can tell "high impact philanthropy" isn't an actual 'thing' in it's own right, it's just the name of an organization that happens to have similarities to EA, which is an actual movement. I would have actually nominated the article for deletion but right now I will just perform a merge.  K . Bog  03:50, 27 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your work! There was some good content there, like the history and list of organizations. Nkn7391 (talk) 04:25, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Praise Section
This criticism is not that interesting, but I'll save the link here in-case people find more praise and want to add a bunch of it: Euromoney has praised effective altruism for its emphasis on individual charitable action. RyanCarey1 (talk) 15:28, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Citation quality
I'm no experienced Wikipedian but my feeling is that far too many of the references here come from the EA organizations themselves. e.g. see all the GiveWell links in the effectiveness section. If I'm not wrong, many of these should be substituted with objective sources, and some should be removed.RyanCarey1 (talk) 17:54, 14 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I concur, and have tagged the article accordingly. Could do with a thorough cleanout of the primary sources - David Gerard (talk) 13:25, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I added the external links you deleted, but I can see that deleting them is reasonable according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links and the two ones you left are more clearly notable for effective altruism, and as far as I know not tied to any particular organisations promoting themselves.
 * I don't agree with the cutting of almost all organisations though, leaving just one in 'Other organisations' (which appears to be an alternative brand for the already-listed Giving What We Can.) Many of them have been around since effective altruism's early days and are extremely widely known in the movement. Here's evidence of this: https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/permalink/832289520160740/?qa_ref=qd . I'd suggest we take the list that the community agrees on for its Facebook group description: https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/permalink/865781760144849/ Nkn7391 (talk) 02:40, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Facebook posts don't quite meet WP:RS. Do we have anything that does? I would have left more in but none rated a WP article as yet - David Gerard (talk) 07:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I can see why we'd prefer other things, but looking at that policy we're unlikely to find a newspaper article talking about what are and aren't notable effective altruist organisations. The main venues which'd publish articles like this would be organisations themselves, which are obviously biased. The best we might be able to find would be the votes of some committee or group, would that count? We need *some* principle for deciding, and using the ones that have arranged Wikipedia articles is too narrow. Nkn7391 (talk) 22:06, 9 May 2015 (UTC)


 * Without any other principle, and with most of the list restored thanks to Kbog's careful merge from High impact philanthropy I've gone back and added the notable organizations from previous revisions. It has the added benefit of making the article less likely to be accused of being a disguised advert for one or two organizations, but rather making it clear it's about a broader movement. Nkn7391 (talk) 04:25, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I've removed about 1/3rd of the references and occasional less-than-encyclopaedic sentences that were associated with low quality references. I've especially tried to remove references where the text just says 'some effective altruists believe X', with a link to X's blog, which common sense would suggest does not belong in this page. I think there's probably a bit more work to do with cleaning out primary sources, but we seem to be halfway there. 146.199.208.126 (talk) 10:26, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I've removed another half-dozen references, so I've tentatively removed the tag now. RyanCarey1 (talk) 10:39, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Definition of EA and associated claims
Would it help if I went through the definition of EA and associated claims? One association which I spot now, right in the intro, is "Effective altruism sometimes involves taking actions that are less sentimental or emotionally salient." This doesn't seem to merit going in the intro, at least. Admittedly I may be biased by the fact that it seems like a good movement and this seems like an associaiton that will put some people off. Nkn7391 (talk) 18:44, 14 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I've deleted it. Nkn7391 (talk) 17:09, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Elon Musk an effective altruist?
So I'm pretty sure that guy is a perfect example of what effective altruism is about. Yet his name was recently removed. Could it be readded? Also if you find any good reference for it please post them here; I'm not sure if http://www.eaglobal.org/#speakers-section is good enough. --Fixuture (talk) 13:13, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * We should probably find a better reference first, e.g. his own self-identification or consensus about this in one of the community forums. Nkn7391 (talk) 15:22, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that effective giving be merged into effective altruism. I think that the content in the Effective Giving article can easily be explained in the context of Effective Altruism, and the Effective Altruism article is of a reasonable size that the merging of Effective Giving will not cause any problems as far as article size or undue weight is concerned. Please keep the discussion consolidated here.  K . Bog  22:35, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * In theory, effective giving might be a broader concept that is not restricted to the effective altruism movement. But looking at page, it basically just duplicates content and links that are here. So merging/deleting could make sense. RyanCarey1 (talk) 14:53, 6 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi RyanCarey1, welcome to the discussion! By convention Wikipedians discuss mergers on the article being merged from - you'll see that KBog made 'here' a link to this. Nkn7391 (talk) 17:58, 9 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've added my 2c there. RyanCarey1 (talk) 23:08, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Merger completed. Nkn7391 (talk) 06:11, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Organizations

 * content of the edit

, I'm still waiting for a valid counter-argument. How do we know these organizations are worth mentioning? WP:NOTDIR. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 18:35, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Also WP:EL: "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be placed in the body of an article." External_links: "External link sections are not prohibited at the end of a stand-alone lists or at the end of articles that contain embedded lists. However, the lists themselves should not be composed of external links. These lists are primarily intended as providing direct information and internal navigation, not a directory of sites on the web." — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 18:40, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

Apologies, Jeraphine, I'm not trying to be gladiatorial, just solicit more opinions. For instance, the first EA organization in Brazil (Instituto Ética, Racionalidade e Futuro da Humanidade) is at least worth mentioning, IMO, if only to help correct the impression EA is an exclusively Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. Getting some input from a Portuguese/Brazilian editor would be good. --Davidcpearce (talk) 18:58, 15 July 2015 (UTC)


 * That list was culled from directory status at least once already, I wouldn't want to encourage it being put into that state again. Also, effectivealtruism.org is already in EL. This should be removed from where it is - David Gerard (talk) 19:06, 15 July 2015 (UTC)


 * I've removed the website links from the 'Organizations' section, as that's appropriate Wikipedia practice. However otherwise I agree with Davidcpearce and his edit comment that "the EA organisations in question aren't random; nor does text read like an advertisement". Many of them have been around since effective altruism's early days and are extremely widely known in the movement and would be considered notable within it. (See https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/permalink/832289520160740/ for one example among many.) WP:RS notwithstanding, we're unlikely to find a newspaper article talking about what are and aren't notable effective altruist organisations. The main venues which'd publish articles like this would be organisations themselves, which are obviously biased. But just including the organisations that have arranged Wikipedia articles is too narrow. Nkn7391 (talk) 22:31, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

PHC
"Project Healthy Children, which is currently in the process of being evaluated by GiveWell for top charity status"

Is this still accurate? They're supposed to have been being evaluated by GiveWell since at least early 2013, so this clause seems misleading to me. I'll strike it within a few days unless anyone can provide a better citation or clearer evidence. Nkn7391 (talk) 03:12, 4 December 2015 (UTC)

Peter Singer and other Notables
as-is right now, since they are mentioned in the lead it may make sense to include subsections on these. However, the content itself does not seem to be notable much beyond "works that they have done." For example:

"The book The Life You Can Save, in which he argues that people should use charity evaluators to determine how to make their donations most effective"

This should probably be moved instead to content within the article on how charity evaluators have become a "trend". The fact that he wrote these books isn't in itself notable without greater context, and would be more suitable for content on the Peter Singer page. My other issue with content that I removed was the degree already that Peter Singer is mentioned throughout the article, to the degree that I don't think it's necessary to expand out in a separate section additional info on these people. The bio info is already covered in their individual pages, and should not be included on Effective Altruism unless its content relevant to the Effective Altruism field. I'll take a look and see what looks reasonable to integrate into other sections of the article.

Regards, Shaded0 (talk) 16:26, 5 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me so far. The info on Singer such as the book quote on charity evaluation is relevant because it's very fundamental to EA; the movement itself doesn't make much sense without the presence of such activities and organizations. There's quite a few mentions but in each specific context I think the sections wouldn't be as informative without the explanation on where the ideas came from.  K . Bog  00:21, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Needs to go
So I twice tried to speedy delete this article. Maybe that was a little rash but I thought it would be the quick and dirty way to start solving the multiple horrific problem here. The entire AFD process is not something I do here. But if I did, it would probably be for multiple articles. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Vipul.27s_paid_editing_enterprise )

Reson for Speedy was G11 needs rewrite by uninvolved editors. TeeVeeed (talk) 14:20, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
 * AFD would be the correct process to go through for this since it would need consensus. I haven't seen the paid editing chain on the noticeboard, but since it seems relevant to the topic I'd be open to review. Can you summarize your thoughts on how the COI discussion is relevant to this article? Feel free to edit any that you see need editing within the article for NPOV, but I do not see that this meets CSD currently. Thanks for bringing this to attention. Shaded0 (talk) 17:39, 8 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't even know where to start. First I guess is rampant COI, paid advocacy as noted in the thread mentioned above. Secondly is the article itself. WP:UNDUE it's too long! Too much referencing of one philosophy professor's work. Sourcing from articles from 1971! (made to look like it is current info.).....in light of the problems, the entire article needs to go imo. Then if someone, someday wants to create an article--that would be the correct way to do this-I think.TeeVeeed (talk) 21:14, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
 * The article has been, as they say, problematic; see WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 107 for evidence of off-wiki brigading and a link to a productive sockpuppet investigation. This is in addition to the new paid-editing team discussed by TeeVeeed above. - Bri (talk) 01:06, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm.. ok. Just to clarify further, what do you mean by briganding? I don't think this actually reached consensus on the COI post for this from what I can see from your archive link. I agree this can probably be pared down for being promotional and regarding WP:DUE weight, but I have a hard time believing that the issues cannot be resolved within the scope of the current article. Shaded0 (talk) 02:07, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Not briganding, but brigading -- recruiting of like-minded editors through off-wiki means. Also described as WP:MEAT. - Bri (talk) 02:17, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's the actual definition of meatpuppetry, otherwise feminist editathons would be banned rather than celebrated!--greenrd (talk) 22:57, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Hi @TeeVeeed, please note that WP:UNDUE refers specifically to disputed points of view, and merely is about comparative weight, not absolute article size. Since there is no clear opposing point of view to compare this article to, it cannot be said to have undue weight. The relevant standard for article length in general is WP:TOOLONG, but it's not clear to me how this article fits that criterion. There is no general rule that articles need to be short, as long as their length and content is supported by reliable sources. While Singer is referenced very much here, it's to be expected given the prevalence in secondary reliable sources of statements describing his centrality to the creation and ideas of the movement. Compare Marxism, for instance - it has nearly 80 mentions of "Marx " and "Marx'", while this article has only 16 mentions of "Singer " and "Singer'", despite the Marxism article being less than twice as long. Also compare the age of the sources on the Marxism article, which are often a full century older than this one. This is normal and acceptable for a Wikipedia entry. Finally, specific phrasings can and should be corrected for style and NPOV (as you have done with many of your edits which have been accepted).  K . Bog  00:54, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you User: Kbog yes I mean WP:TOOLONG. I'm now wondering if this material should be merged on the Singer page? If not, then the 16 or so referrals to Singer are imo WP:UNDUE. It's either one or the other. If this article is to remain at all, it should be reduced to a stub and rewritten imo. It does look like things are improving with the COI situation mentioned above, so hopefully, things will balance out correctly.TeeVeeed (talk) 20:49, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I absolutely disagree that it should be merged with the Singer article, as it is too long for that, and there has been much independent third-party coverage of this topic separate from mentions of Singer, as well as much involvement from other notable individuals. Nevertheless, Singer is pretty central to this subject, and every mention of him helps explain the notability and/or details of the subject matter. As for COI, please don't take the unhelpful course of disregarding contributions from those of us who have worked independently on this article just because of a current dispute over paid editing, nor disregard content just because it happened to be paid. I think the article length is satisfactory (compare entries on similar niche social movements in Feminist movements and ideologies, such as Chicana feminism), but regardless, as per WP:AS, "Content should not be removed from articles simply to reduce length". I'm not involved in advocacy controversy up in the meta-space, but will continue to work on things down here.  K . Bog  21:41, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Primary source template
After editing the article to improve its sourcing, I believe the primary source template should be removed. There are still quite a few primary sources in this article but they are mostly either (a) partially redundant with secondary/tertiary sources placed nearby, or (b) published literature used in accordance with WP:PRIMARY. The main points of the article are well supported by secondary and tertiary sources. This is what the article looked like when @User:Lrieber added the tag:  K . Bog  09:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll agree, substantial edits have been made by your part Kbog which looks like it is in a much better state. Thanks for the numerous number of edits on this. I will go ahead and remove the tag. Shaded0 (talk) 18:28, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

A note on content and sourcing
The material on this article is mostly well sourced, either from reliable secondary sources or from primary sources used in accordance with WP:PRIMARY. Since this article is a work in progress, it may not be perfect. If there is an issue with any of the content then raise it here and it can be properly fixed.  K . Bog  02:24, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

Merge Cause prioritization
I propose that the cause prioritization article should be merged into EA. There are few if any references to "cause prioritization" outside of EA forums and blogs. Cause prioritization is a central aspect of EA which distinguishes it from other approaches to charitable giving, so it would definitely fit into this article. GojiBarry (talk) 19:34, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm in favor - I can't think of any non-EA cause prioritization that has received significant reliable independent coverage.  K . Bog  20:45, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The only example I can think of is the Copenhagen Consensus, but I'm sure there are others. Nonetheless, the text of the cause prioritization article is already included almost verbatim in the Cause prioritization section, so should it just be turned into a redirect? GojiBarry (talk) 08:04, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Sure  K . Bog  06:37, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

Animal Charity Evaluators
If ACE is inherently 'welfarist' and doesn't measure its sets of measurable 'animal charities' by overall reduction of animal exploitation and abuse, then can it claim to be much more than a 'feel good' exercise in 'EA methodologies' which merely leads, as shown by abolitionists, such as Gary Francione, to merely increase the overall 'volume' of animal exploitation by encouraging the sponsors of that cruelty to animals to feel good because 'it's regulated' or 'it's not as bad as it could have been' or 'it's less objectionable visually than it used to be'? Would ACE survive an EA analysis? MaynardClark (talk) 01:29, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You could read through their blog and charity reports to get a sense of their reasoning. Whether you agree or disagree with their philosophical and strategic beliefs, this is probably not the proper place to have that discussion, unless you are proposing an edit to the article. GojiBarry (talk) 07:12, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

A couple new sources to add
https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/The-Institutional-Critique-of-Effective-Altruism.pdf

https://www.ethicsandinternationalaffairs.org/2016/the-lessons-of-effective-altruism/

 K . Bog  05:50, 13 September 2017 (UTC)

"Leverage Research" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Leverage Research. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Praxidicae (talk) 23:10, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

RFC on Template:Effective altruism
There is an RFC on the names to include as Key Figures for Effective altruism in the Template:Effective altruism. The discussion is at Template talk:Effective altruism. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:11, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Sourcing
The article is getting filled with primary sources, blog sources and forum sources again. These aren't generally considered usable sources in Wikipedia - it needs to stick to verifiable, third-party Reliable Sources. What would an article on EA that was strictly based on mainstream third-party RSes look like? - David Gerard (talk) 19:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * When you say "again", to which time period are you comparing the present version? I ask because I am new to this article (editing since the GA review in January 2020—and I am not affiliated with EA in any way, only heard of it a few months ago) and I wonder if you are referring to my edits or to something else. I started working on revising the article according to the GA review, but I haven't proceeded very far yet—only really from the top to, and I haven't yet expanded the lead as recommended in the GA review, so there is much more left to do. In particular, I have found a lot of material for the Criticism section (or for integration into other sections) but have not found time to add it yet. In what I have edited so far, I have used what I thought were reliable sources. Biogeographist (talk) 19:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Without looking at the article's history, I'm seeing some problems as well. I see a lot of sweeping claims based on debatable primary sources. As examples, this article includes far too much PR from 80,000 Hours, GiveWell, Giving What We Can, and probably others. When primary sources are cited as examples of the larger movement, it's often WP:SYNTH or similar. We should be summarizing conclusions from independent sources, with involved sources mainly used to fill-in non-controversial details. Regardless of noble intentions, Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion, and this disproportionate level of detail for these advocacy groups pushes the article in that direction. Grayfell (talk) 21:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks; your comment is much along the same lines as the GA review in January 2020, and continued work on implementing the GA review suggestions should resolve the remaining issues. But it will take some time (especially if it is just me implementing the changes suggested in the GA review, as it has been so far). Biogeographist (talk) 22:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * To be clear, "reliable sources" here means WP:RS; I personally agree that 80,000 Hours, GiveWell, and Giving What We Can are reliable in the sense that they aren't making things up, but they're also not considered "part of the conversations taking place in the mainstream media or the peer-reviewed journals". Or to put it another way, if people want to hear what 80,000 hours has to say, they can visit the page themselves; Wikipedia is for verifiable information about high-profile statements. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:33, 16 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Understood. The one citation from 80000hours.org that I retained in the material that I have edited so far, I retained because it had an especially concise quotation about the issue (quoted in the ref tag), but if there is objection to retaining that citation, it is no big loss because there are reliable sources also cited at the same point that say essentially the same thing in a more academic way. Biogeographist (talk) 12:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Related to this issue are the recent edits to the article (e.g., Special:Diff/950853799 and Special:Diff/951106244) about whether a sentence should read "Some effective altruists believe" or "Many effective altruists believe". This question can be avoided entirely, and the defeasibility of the sentence could likely be improved significantly, by entirely restructuring the sentence so that it doesn't refer to "what effective altruists believe" at all, but just reports what reliable sources say about how the project of effective altruism is applied in animal welfare. And this is likely true of many other sentences in the article. I will look at this in more detail as I continue to implement the suggestions of the GA review (if it is not already corrected before then). Biogeographist (talk) 13:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)


 * well, yes. Take the article, strip out all everything with primary and dubious sourcing, stick strictly to stuff that passes WP:RS. What shape is the article then? - David Gerard (talk) 13:45, 17 April 2020 (UTC)


 * If you're impatient, you can make the changes yourself and find out. I think the part that I've already edited would hold up well. As for the rest of it, I'm planning to make more changes according to the suggestions in the GA review, but it's not a high priority for me immediately. Biogeographist (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not that impatient, but I am hoping to get the advocates to think about it in terms of what would make a robustly-supported article, without forum links and so forth - David Gerard (talk) 18:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

CEEALAR here?
Hi all, I just started a page for Centre for Enabling EA Learning & Research. I have added it to the EA Template. Does it warrant a mention in this article too? Cheers, DougInAMug talk 15:55, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

What is a "good source" here?
Effective Altruist orgs put out tonnes of content. It's not hard for me to provide a lot more sources for this article. But I sense that wikipedia wants neutral sources. But EA is still pretty niche and it's not clear there are neutral sources for say "what cause areas there are" Nathan PM Young (talk) 17:16, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The relevant guideline is WP:Reliable sources, especially "Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." See the guideline for further details. Internet forums are not an appropriate source per WP:UGC. Biogeographist (talk) 19:44, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

I find this talk page almost inpenetrable
Is it normal for a talk page to be an entire block of conversations without some kind of summary or "state of the art" somewhere. How do I understand what needs doing? Like is this really how groups of people edit pages? I am confused that this is the norm. Nathan PM Young (talk) 17:09, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I would say this is a more verbose talk page than is typical, except for very controversial and high-traffic articles. The frequency of automatic archiving of talk page sections here probably needs to be increased, since it is currently set to one year, and there has been a lot of activity here in the past year. Biogeographist (talk) 18:58, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * But like, is there some way I can gather TODOs and put them in one place? It feels like every time I come to work on this page I'm gonna have to read through this huge page again. Nathan PM Young (talk) 19:18, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, there's a talk page template for that: To do. I put it among the banners at the top of the page, where it belongs per WP:TALKORDER. See WP:TODO on how to use it. Biogeographist (talk) 19:25, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * But there are also actionable items in the third WP:GA review, Talk:Effective altruism/GA3, that is transcluded above. I would say any issues that are listed there shouldn't be duplicated in the To do template, since the GA review is like its own project. But anything that is separate from that could go in the To do template. Biogeographist (talk) 19:32, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * , I think you are looking for something like WP:WPEA, which is a gathering place for users to discuss, plan, and organize improvements to Wikipedia's coverage of effective altruism. Maintaining and improving this page is one of its most important projects. Jmill1806 (talk) 12:55, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Compatibility with ethical and meta-ethical systems
One of the links just leads to an archive of philosophical essays, so it's either dead or just not typed out in full.

One source, written by proponent, claims that the "minimal view" (a particular interpretation of EA) is, to paraphrase, found in utilitarianism, deontology, etc. This is different from saying EA as a whole is compatible with all these philosophies, as the Wikipedia article does. As this is not a neutral source, it would be more accurate to say that the EA community is receptive to a number of ethical philosophies. Compatibility implies something two-sided.

I can't find these claims in any other source but maybe I'm missing something. 2603:7081:1603:A300:E5EF:7C3F:2391:5FE (talk) 14:46, 3 November 2022 (UTC)


 * The philosophy section was very heavily edited so that some of the requisite context was removed, and someone also inadvisably changed "can be compatible" to "is compatible". I agree that "is compatible" may be going to far, depending on what set of principles one understands EA to include, so I changed it back to "can be compatible" and added a phrase explaining the "minimal view". Thanks for noticing this. In the minimal view of EA it's not really an ethical system, just a practical project, which is why it is compatible with various ethical systems. Biogeographist (talk) 13:18, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Fixing example farm issue
Hi Xx78900, I'm looking at fixing the example farm issue, and I'd love your advice. For the history section, originally it only talked about the Centre for Effective Altruism, which was a misleading history because the formation of the group that identifies itself as Effective Altruism came from multiple groups, and was not started solely by Will MacAskill. I had these listed, but then I think one of the groups (Felicifia) was removed because it didn't have a link or source. Someone has since archived the old Felicifia forum on Github (https://felicifia.github.io/forum/index.html). When Felicifia was removed, the remaining three became examples instead of a comprehensive list. Do you think the best way to deal with this is to add Felicifia back so that it's no longer examples and is the complete list of communities (four) that merged into Effective Altruism? Also is the history section the only reason you decided to add the example farm template, or is there another part of the article that needs fixing? Thanks in advance. Ruthgrace (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Found while looking at WP:OVERCITE issue
 * The view of effective altruism as doing the most good one can within a defined budget can be compatible with a wide variety of views on morality and meta-ethics. Examples include consequentialism, egalitarianism, prioritarianism, utilitarianism, contractualism, deontological ethics, virtue ethics, as well as traditional religious teachings on altruism such as in Christianity.  Effective altruism can also be in tension with religion where religion emphasizes spending resources on worship and evangelism instead of causes that do the most good.
 * Updated to
 * The view of effective altruism as doing the most good one can within a defined budget can be compatible with a wide variety of views on morality and meta-ethics, as well as traditional religious teachings on altruism such as in Christianity. Effective altruism can also be in tension with religion where religion emphasizes spending resources on worship and evangelism instead of causes that do the most good.
 * Ruthgrace (talk) 23:20, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Ruthgrace, sorry I've taken so long to get back to you, I've been thinking about how to approach a reply because it's a complicated issue. I think part of the problem is that we're approaching this issue (specifically, the example farm of the history section) from different perspectives. Obviously I prefer my approach and you yours, but I'm not going to try and claim that I have access to an objectively superior viewpoint. So I'll lay out what I think is happening from both sides, and see if we can't reach a Hegelian synthesis.
 * What I believe your belief to be is that the history section of the page should discuss converging movements / communities. I don't believe this is executed in a manner that makes sense. Several organisations are listed and described as converging, but its not explained how they converge, or rather, what the relevance of their convergence is. Moreover, I would be slow to assume that the removal of Felicifia created a list of examples instead of a comprehensive list, as I disagree that forming a comprehensive list is indeed possible. Definitely I think there's too many examples of Singer's work (though his Animal Liberation personally changed my life), because it's not explained as to why each example is relevant. The same for all the Vox episodes (which are likely not even really that significant?). Also why does it continue to use 80,000 hours after its said that they reformed under a new name? The Facebook group remains to me an utterly irrelevant anecdote.
 * I believe that the history section should primarily be the development and adoption of the ideas of Effective Altruism, and should probably start with Singer's 1997 'Drowning Child' ethics problem. Nick Bostrom was writing about longtermism back in 2003. I think the history section should focus on the progression of ideas that become Effective Altruism, as opposed to organisations. Émile P Torres, a noted critic and former proponent of EA is notably absent.
 * So in summary, I think there's too much focus on small communities, because their imapact / the degree to which individuals embodied the values of VA is unquantified. A more detailed history of ideas, reinforced by its growing impact / adoption makes a lot more sense to me. Xx78900 (talk) 12:50, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! I think everything you said makes sense. I will take a crack at rewriting the history section and posting it here on the talk page for you to take a look at when I'm ready. If I understand correctly, I think what you're getting at with the "example farm" issue is that when things are listed without enough context on why it matters to the main subject, it's not as good of an article. Have I got it right? Ruthgrace (talk) 17:41, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it's more than just making sure everything is context specific, though that is a large part of it. I think that the article excessively lists things that would be better off being absent. Take, for example, all the different examples of Vox documentary subjects. All cited, but it just feels like such a minor event to take up so much space. I think in a lot of cases excessive detail and examples are provided, when they simply aren't necessary. I am reminded of WP:NOTEVERYTHING, which stresses that Information should not be included in this encyclopedia solely because it is true or useful. A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject. Verifiable and sourced statements should be treated with appropriate weight. I think that in this article there is a lot of detail included that while true and verifiable is given undue weight: it is not important enough to warrant exhaustive mention. To return to the Vox example, perhaps rewriting "In 2018, American news website Vox launched its Future Perfect section, led by journalist Dylan Matthews, which publishes articles and podcasts on "Finding the best ways to do good", including topics such as effective philanthropy, high-impact career choice, poverty reduction through women's empowerment, improving children's learning efficiently through improving environmental health, animal welfare improvements, and ways to reduce global catastrophic risks." to instead read as "In 2018, American news website Vox launched its Future Perfect section, led by journalist Dylan Matthews, which publishes articles and podcasts related to the principles of effective altruism." would help reduce the unwieldy feel of much of the article. All of this extra stuff doesn't necessarily need to be removed - having one large footnote in which all of the different examples are listed and independently cited is perhaps the best of both worlds, removing bloat from the body but retaining the information for interested readers. See for example footnote #375 in the article on The Rolling Stones or all of the notes (as opposed to the references) in the James Joyce article. Xx78900 (talk) 22:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I moved the examples into a footnote as recommended by . Biogeographist (talk) 22:05, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of Bostrom January 2023 controversy
I added a discussion of the Bostrom January 2023 controversy as follows:

In 2023, one of the philosophers most closely associated with effective altruism, Nick Bostrom, published an apology for an email sent to the Extropians mailing list in 1995 that stated, "Blacks are more stupid than whites," and contained a racial slur. The publicized email and the apology were met with widespread censure.

Shortly after, Xx78900 reverted the edit saying:

Unless Effective Altruism is itself criticised in connection to the letter, however abhorrent its contents may be, such inclusion is inappropriate here.

To me, this is insufficient reason to exclude the content. Bostrom is in the "Key figures" list and is separately listed on the page as a philosopher associated with effective altruism. Indeed, his ideas seem to be central to this philosophical and social movement. So if I understand correctly, this controversy is an important inclusion in the article. I would like to hear what others think as I may be missing something. Jmill1806 (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not my impression that Bostrom is central to EA. Saying that he is "associated", as this article does, doesn't tell us much: closely associated or distantly associated? The "Key figures" section of the EA template has been contentious in the past. I would say Bostrom is distantly associated, and therefore I agree with 's reversion. In contrast, if the controversy were about MacAskill then I would probably include it. Biogeographist (talk) 22:58, 21 January 2023 (UTC) & 23:00, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * My reasoning is thus: I have seen Bostrom criticised for his comments, but I have not seen the EA movement criticised in association with these comments which is in stark contrast to Bankman-Fried whose controversy was directly attributed to EA time and time again. It is without doubt relevant to Bostrom's own article, but not every controversy associated with a philosopher is also associated with their movemnt. Xx78900 (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the perspective. Just to put it on your radar, I think most criticism of Bostrom's comments has been focused on effective altruism. For example, I think this is the most viewed tweet on the topic: "This is the old email that Nick Bostrom, a leader in Effective Altruism, is now apologizing for. Horrifying, yes, but I assure you his "apology" is worse - he walks back on his "invocation of a racial slur" without addressing the initial statement of a false & racist belief." ⸻ @rajiinio
 * Jmill1806 (talk) 15:33, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Citation needed for the claim in this tweet that Bostrom is a leader of effective altruism. That's exactly the claim that I contested above. Where is Bostrom's book on EA? (It doesn't exist.) And the tweet involves a claim about a third party, so it violates criterion 2 of WP:TWITTER. Biogeographist (talk) 21:13, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Yew-Kwang Ng
It seems wrong to me to mention one economist out of hundreds, especially one that I (who am pretty involved in effective altruism) have never heard of. Nathan PM Young (talk) 17:11, 5 October 2022 (UTC)


 * From Yew-Kwang Ng (citing the same source as in Effective altruism: "Thanks to his early work on animal welfare, global catastrophic risks and the measurement of wellbeing, he is credited with originating many ideas that would later be incorporated into the philosophy of effective altruism." Schweet (talk) 17:18, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Criticism
This article is missing a criticism section. (There's been sporadic discussion of that above, but maybe development of it can be centralized.) Most articles about well-known philosophies have one (Existentialism, Rationalism), and even before the FTX debacle, people have levied plenty of criticisms of EA. Ones that come to mind: A culture of elitism and impenetrability to outsiders (counterargument: donating money to the arts, and not to charity, is elitist ), including poor or non-white people, and associated parochialism and naivete about how the world works. Insufficient focus on the arts and beauty, which could conceivably give lives more quality, long term. "Telescopic philanthropy" to far-away places, with a callous disregard for domestic needs. The permitting of doing harmful things to an end (mentioned a bit in the existing FTX section). The discouragement of focusing on "pet causes" rather than the largest problems. Criticisms of its highly calculated utilitarianism (why not leave the child to drown and sell the suit to donate to a charity which can save more children?).

I'll try drafting a couple paragraphs but I would appreciate input. Ovinus (talk) 20:20, 19 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Yes this would be very useful to the article. Also as an aside, that was so funny to read lmao Xx78900 (talk) 20:42, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * (I'm glad you enjoyed it.) I've added some stuff and rearranged a part of the "Incremental versus systemic change" section to go in the "Criticism" section. I'm not great at writing about controversial topics (I tend to mildly "invigorate" them—which is perhaps appropriate for historical topics, but not for modern issues), so I hope others can help. I've also removed the example farm tag, because I think the article is a lot better since it was added, due to the work of others. Plus, philosophy articles are one of the few places where manifold examples create a more informative, and ultimately neutral, text. Ovinus (talk) 21:30, 19 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I agree with removing the example farm template just yet - while I agree with you that from a philosophical perspective mroe examples can be useful, my concern is for the History, Cause Priorities, and Approaches sections, wherein I think there are a lot of businesses/organisations listed to the point of redundancy. You may have noticed above my grievance about a Facebook group's inclusion in particular. Xx78900 (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That’s fair, especially regarding the organizations thing. Undid my removal Ovinus (talk) 00:23, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Once it comes out, this may be a good book to really round out the criticism section, or at least to enumerate the main objections. Ovinus (talk) 00:17, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm with you on the Facebook group. Is it time to remove it? (I'm pretty new here and still trying to get to grips with all the rules and norms.) Schweet (talk) 18:00, 20 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Everything in the criticism section can and should be moved into the body of the article. I've tried to address some of the POV issues but there's still a lot there. It makes the article non-neutral and have significant POV issues that the main body of the article reads like a promotion piece and relies heavily on self-serving statements of proponents of effective alturism while relegating the significant and well-sourced criticism of the movement as not actually supporting or adhering to its stated values to a criticism section at the end. The criticism section is probably the best-sourced part of this article. It's my understanding that while Wikipedia doesn't ban criticism sections, but that the preference is to just work critical material into the article. There's also a preference for third-party sources rather than first-party sources. The heavy citations to William MacAskill, who seems to be considered a founder of the movement, is a significant issue. A more neutral POV article would not confine negative information about the article's subject which is well-sourced through reliable, fairly unbiased, third-party sources to a criticism section while allowing the article to be dominated by first-party sources and promotional/normative content. For more on this generally, see for instance the discussion in Criticism and Template:Third-party. Nogburt (talk) 13:50, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Most of what said has been discussed on the talk page in the past (see the archives), and at one point there was a criticism section that was subsequently completely integrated into the article, and that criticism is  in the body of the article. But then someone came along and added a new criticism section with further sources. (Was it ? I forget.) Apparently some people like separate criticism sections? This sequence of events led to the awkward current situation where we have an "Other criticism" section since some criticism is integrated into the article and some is in the separate section. I support integrating all the criticism into the article. Biogeographist (talk) 15:37, 29 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with Biogeographist that the criticism should be integrated into the article. See Criticism: "In most cases separate sections devoted to criticism, controversies, or the like should be avoided in an article because these sections call undue attention to negative viewpoints." Schweet (talk) 16:34, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I think you intended to link to WP:Criticism, from which that quotation is taken. Note that WP:Criticism is an essay, that is, just an opinion, and not a Wikipedia guideline. Even if it's true that criticism sections should be avoided "in most cases" (which is questionable), one still has to give reasons why this article is one of those cases and is not an exception. Citing the essay alone does not make a sufficient argument. I'm not worried about the criticism section attracting "undue attention to negative viewpoints", and I would guess that the critics don't think that attention to their criticisms is undue. In this case, I think it's best to try to integrate the criticism into the article because that is what has already been done for other criticism, because it's relevant to other sections and makes better sense in context, and because it's part of an ongoing history of dialogue and experimentation (as opposed to, say, a criticism section in an article about a book, where the book is already published and doesn't go on adapting and creating new history in response to criticism: books don't change once published, but effective altruism is a work in progress). Biogeographist (talk) 17:06, 20 April 2023 (UTC)
 * @Biogeographist: Fair enough (and yes, wrong link - sorry!) Thanks for starting work on this. I have some ideas for finishing integrating the 'Other criticism' section:
 * 1. Remove the 1st paragraph given that these two criticisms are covered in more depth above (under Cause Prioritization and immediately prior to that sentence)?
 * 2. Move the 2nd paragraph to the end of History, given that 3 of the 5 references are from after the FTX bankruptcy (and the other 2 seem a bit redundant and out of date)?
 * 3. Move the 3rd paragraph to the end of History, given that it's already mentioned there? And maybe shorten it given that it's based on one article (which the other citation is commentary on)? Schweet (talk) 10:25, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I moved the content as you suggested but didn't do any further editing. Regarding #1, I agree this is redundant now; it was initially a summary of the criticism section, and an IP editor appended the reference in this edit; I deleted the sentence but moved the reference to the further reading section. Regarding #2, this paragraph has references dating back to 2015, so it doesn't comfortably fit in post-2022 history; since it is the only remaining paragraph in the section, I renamed the section to "Movement demographics". If there is more information on EA demographics in reliable sources, perhaps the section could be expanded so it is more precise than "Look! Rich white people!" (but without trying to deflect the criticism). Biogeographist (talk) 16:47, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * @Nogburt: You say, "There's also a preference for third-party sources rather than first-party sources." Yes, but the third-party tag is used to "identify articles that name sources, but that are biased because every source named has a very close connection to the subject, such as the manufacturer of a product." (Template:Third-party). That's very clearly not the case with this article. But I do agree that it feels like more non-primary sources are needed and I've just corrected the two places that were tagged as such. Schweet (talk) 18:52, 20 April 2023 (UTC)


 * It seems the most concrete concern about neutrality, first party sources, has been improved (and potentially didn't apply in the first place). Given that there is also no definitive rule in favor of or against criticism sections, I would remove the NPOV tag if there is no objection within 3 weeks from now. SoerenMind (talk) 10:31, 12 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I disagree. From my perspective, the article is biased in favour of Effective Altruism, and is definitely relying too heavily on primary sources still. Xx78900 (talk) 14:42, 12 May 2023 (UTC)
 * While there are still primary sources, can you give a few examples of primary sources that contribute to a non-neutral POV of the article? And if there are any other neutrality issues, can you explain what those are?SoerenMind (talk) 11:30, 14 May 2023 (UTC)