Template talk:Effective altruism

Recent revert
LessWrong is a web forum (not an organization), per its Wikipedia page. Seems pretty straightforward that it doesn't count as an "organization". We also lack reliable sources to place it as a member - just one saying that it "played a role" in development.  K . Bog  16:03, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Mmmm ... tricky one. I think it rates mention - the LW subculture is all up in the EA subculture - but yeah, an RS would be needed - David Gerard (talk) 23:31, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If there were a group that encompasses websites or forums then it might go there, but there aren't any other notable ones, and a group with a single entry would be bad practice.  K . Bog  00:23, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

Jacy Reese
So far he's been removed twice, with cites to sources that ... both clearly illustrate his relevance to the topic. He may be a person who was pushed out of the EA subculture for particular reasons, but he's clearly not irrelevant, even if the EA subculture don't want him to be associated with them. How best to list him, if not in "People"? 'Cos it's obvious he warrants a listing - David Gerard (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Can you help me understand the argument that he is notable enough to include in the navbox? The article that Homo.deus cites has a quote of his reasoning for being a "cofounder" of EA, which seems to be: 1) he volunteered with GWWC, and 2) he volunteered with THINK. He is not on the about us page for GWWC – I will take him at his word that he volunteered at some point, but his contributions were not crucial enough to be listed on the website anywhere or in any communications that I can find. THINK is not listed on the EA wiki page at all, so I am not sure how notable it is, but their page says that Mark Lee was the founder, Marcus Davis was "one of the main people" and Tom Ash was "coordinating central help". Jacy is listed as a "consultant", which I think would make him at most the fourth most notable person from THINK (which is itself an organization not notable enough to be on Wikipedia or mentioned in the effective altruism page).


 * My guess is that GWWC and THINK have dozens of volunteers, and Jacy doesn't appear to be particularly special. He calls himself a "cofounder", but claiming that you are noteworthy is not sufficient for inclusion. And even his self-proclaimed relevance to EA is no longer true given the blog post I linked in my edit. Xodarap00 (talk) 23:29, 1 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Going to go ahead and remove him for now. If someone wants to make the argument that he should be on here, please do add it! Xodarap00 (talk) 16:10, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not following the reasoning here. Reese said he would "step back from public life and the activism communities" for an unspecified period of time. He is still one of the most prominent people associated with the community, and many web pages still associate him with EA. Taking a break from the activist community (this does not necessarily mean stepping back from the ideas or other parts of EA) does not somehow disqualify his "relevance to EA." Furthermore it has now been over half a year since that blog post, so we don't know if he has finished his break, and it seems misguided to edit Wikipedia back and forth on such a basis. Finally he is still employed at the Sentience Institute, which is recognized as an EA Organization, in addition to his previous employment at Giving What We Can, Animal Charity Evaluators, THINK, and other EA Organizations and non-Organizational work. This seems like an unfair follow-up attack on Reese if I'm being honest here. Bodole (talk) 00:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I also don't think the assessment of his background is fair either. Yes, his only formal positions were with Giving What We Can and THINK, but that is only a small portion of what the early days of EA were like. Very little of the "founding" of EA was done in any formal or Organizational capacity, and it seems inaccurate to focus only on that type of contribution. I know Jacy hosted many or most of the online discussions at the time, and the EA community was not very Organizational in the early days. None of us who were not there can really say what "involved in many early discussions and early strategizing" entails. I think you could very legitimately be called a co-founder even without any Organizational role. But just to repeat this point, his inclusion in this template doesn't require any of that. From let's say 2016 onwards, he has been one of the most prominent people in the movement. He has more talks listed online about effective altruism than anyone else I know of, wrote one of a handful of books on the topic, had co-founder or similar roles with THINK, Animal Charity Evaluators, and the Sentience Institute, and I believe is the most followed EA on Twitter and Instagram except for Peter Singer. Just look at who else is included on this list. Only a couple of them or perhaps a handful have more EA involvement to their name. Bodole (talk) 01:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yep - his links and relevance are abundantly clear - David Gerard (talk) 09:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "in addition to his previous employment at Giving What We Can, Animal Charity Evaluators, THINK, and other EA Organizations and non-Organizational work" – he was never employed at Giving What We Can nor THINK – please see my previous comment.
 * "his only formal positions were with Giving What We Can" – he had no formal position with GWWC – please see my previous comment.
 * "He has more talks listed online about effective altruism than anyone else I know of" – he has spoken exactly once at EA Global, which was in 2015. Will MacAskill has spoken 16 times, as one contrasting example. The question we are discussing is whether he is notable *for inclusion in the navbox*, and having spoken once at EAG is clearly not enough to make you notable. (If that was our threshold, there would be a ridiculous number of people in this navbox.) Just to be clear: I am not claiming he isn't a notable figure at all (I trust that he is many Twitter followers etc.), I am just claiming that he doesn't meet notability criteria *for this navbox*.
 * "had co-founder or similar roles with THINK, Animal Charity Evaluators" – once again, he was not a "cofounder" of THINK – see my previous comment. He also was not a founder of Animal Charity Evaluators.
 * "is the most followed EA on Twitter and Instagram except for Peter Singer" - Liv Boree (another person from this navbox) has five times as many followers as Jacy.
 * It would be good if we could stick to evidence supported by Reliable_sources – right now, I think the only piece of evidence in that category is that he worked at Sentience Institute. Xodarap00 (talk) 23:33, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You are using an overly restrictive definition of employment. He volunteered in the early days with GWWC, and he helped found (if you insist on diminishing people's roles by not calling them cofounder) THINK. He might have become a consultant at some point, but that doesn't mean he didn't play a leadership role at its beginning. Why can a consultant not have been a co-founder? You reasoning doesn't make any sense.
 * See above.
 * Why are you using EAG talks as a metric for this? Again I think this reflects you're loaded Organizational view of EA. There's no really good way to count them, but you can search on YouTube. My impression is that Reese has given more EA talks (not necessarily at CEA's conference) than anyone else. But even if he hasn't! He would still merit inclusion.
 * He was Chairman of the Board of Directors at ACE and had worked with them before that in some capacity. I didn't say he was a founder. Again I would encourage you to step beyond your focus on Organizations.
 * You're right about Boree. My mistake.
 * WP:RS is not designed for this. And many of these sources would still count. A YouTube recording of a talk is still proof of a talk on WP, even if it's not in say a major newspaper. WP editors are not meant to blind themselves to obvious facts in the world. RS is about reliable sources for the claims they make. Also if you want to restrict to RS (most of which is major newspapers on WP) then I think the case for Reese's inclusion becomes even stronger because he's been covered in more media than most of these guys (not all, but most). Bodole (talk) 11:40, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Regardless of the outcome of the template discussion, I think it's important to reiterate that there is at least a plausible case for Reese being a co-founder. As he says, social movements are diffuse, and Reese certainly had a lot of involvement in early informal discussions as the community was forming. Your quotes from THINK are not about who was involved in the founding, but who was involved when that page was last updated. This seems like a highly unfair assessment. How much formal organizational involvement can you expect from someone who was a teenager (see his age on the WP page)? It's only natural that he would have more informal involvement as did several other young people who I think could justifiably use the term cofounder. Bodole (talk) 01:44, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * thanks for the ping. To clarify: your belief is that he should be in this template because he is a "cofounder" of effective altruism? (And not, for example, because he was involved in the movement after it was established?) I think this is a really helpful clarification, and greatly appreciate you adding it. If that's correct, I would suggest as a path forward: we agree on what it would mean to "cofound" a movement, and then find sources about Jacy's involvement per those criteria. (More generally: if you could explicitly list out what criteria you think we should use to determine if someone is a "key figure", I would find that very helpful – the "number of Twitter followers" thing was a helpful example of this, because we can just simply look up how many followers he has.)
 * No. In fact I think even if he had no early involvement, he should be included if the full original list is included (there are some people I think were more involved, and if the WP users want the list to be that restrictive then that is one path we could take). This is why I brought up the "cofound" discussion here. It is an offshoot of the primary discussion but I think your initial assessment of Reese as "it simply isn't possible for Jacy to have been a cofounder" has been unfair, which is why I wanted to elaborate. Bodole (talk) 22:45, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I thought I should add my perspective here, as someone who has been involved with the EA movement since its very beginning (I was a founding member of Giving What We Can). I personally don't think that Jacy should have been listed in the Infobox to begin with, irrespective of the recent developments discussed in the "Apology" post. First, the claim that he is a co-founder of the EA movement is demonstrably false. I have been part of this community, together with countless other EAs, for many years before even Jacy appeared on the scene. In the absence of backwards causation, it's physically impossible for Jacy to have "co-founded" a movement that predated him by many years. Secondly, I can think of at least two dozen people who have made more important intellectual contributions to the movement than Jacy has, and who aren't listed in the infobox (names that quickly come to mind: Carl Shulman, Paul Christiano, Nick Beckstead, Amanda Askell, Gregory Lewis, Scott Alexander, Brian Tomasik, Owen Cotton-Barratt, Katja Grace, Jeff Kaufman, Peter Hurford, Ben Kuhn, and many others). Thirdly, there are many people who have founded or co-founded an EA org, or who had positions at multiple orgs, who aren't listed in the infobox, including Joey Savoie, Xio Kikauka, Ben Todd, Robert Wiblin, Ryan Carey, Lukas Gloor, Mark Lee, Jacob Lagerros, Howie Lempel, Matt Wage, Luke Muehlhauser, Stefan Schubert, Tom Sittler, Mark Lee, Eva Vivalt, Lucius Caviola, Elie Hassenfeld, Seth Baum, Cari Tuna, Natalie Cargill, and many others. I don't mean to downplay Jacy's importance: he has helped popularize some EA ideas in mainstream media outlets, has written some interesting stuff on effective animal activism, and has built an important presence on social media. But I don't think this is enough to justify inclusion; and now that he is less involved with EA, the case for removing him is stronger still. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 14:43, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That claim is certainly not demonstrably false. All you "demonstrate" is your personal opinion. What time period are you considering? Since we can apparently use personal experience here, I know Jacy has been involved since at latest 2010, and probably earlier. The movement didn't fully come together until probably 2013. So in what sense did it predate him?


 * The Wikipedia infobox is for Wikipedia-notable people relevant to EA. None of your suggestions even have Wikipedia pages as far as I can tell, so that first rebuts your argument. Furthermore in terms of (again this is not really the sort of content that should be used in WP decisions) intellectual contributions, Jacy has probably had more EA blog posts and articles shared in EA online forums and more talks at EA events than almost anyone on your list. If we can use less specific measurements, then I bet he has established more popular EA ideas than almost anyone on that list as well.


 * But all of that is irrelevant. It is well-established that Jacy is a well-known writer associated with the EA movement and philosophy. And thus merits inclusion. Bodole (talk) 15:34, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Key Figures

 * Key Figures. As Pablo Stafforini points out, there are many figures more relevant to effective altruism than Jacy Reese. Re Bodole's points regarding Wikipedia notability and Twitter followers, many of those do have Wikipedia pages, such as Ben Delo, Seth Baum, Max Tegmark, and many have more Twitter followers, such as Liv Boeree and Julia Galef. But the broader question is what would constitute a useful inclusion in the navigation box. Navigation_template says "The goal is not to cram as many related articles as possible into one space. Ask yourself, does this help the reader in reading up on related topics? Take any two articles in the template. Would a reader really want to go from A to B? They should be kept small in size as a large template has limited navigation value." We would not want the page on, for example, Christianity, to list all notable Christians. I think the "Key Figures" approach of Template:Liberalism makes sense on these lights, so I've tentatively switched to that approach, which means leaving out Jacy Reese, Liv Boeree, Hilary Greaves, and instead sticking to the movement leaders. RyanCarey1 (talk) 16:04, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I was responsible for adding Hilary Greaves, but I would be happy with this compromise solution. (And the user who added Jacy initially seems to agree, at least judging from his edit comment.) Pablo Stafforini (talk) 16:10, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I see the argument for moving it to Key Figures, but I do not agree with your selection. If Reese, Boeree, and Greaves are taken out, then I think Bostrom, Ng, Parfit, and Yudkowsky at least would need to be dropped as well. I especially fear that much of this discussion, and the current list (Bostrom, Yudkowsky) is already strongly loaded towards the AGI cause area. Reese is probably the most prolific and well-known figure in the animal agriculture cause area of EA. He literally wrote the book on it. Bodole (talk) 16:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Hey Bodole. I don't think it would be justified to remove Bostrom, Yudkowsky or Parfit from the list, each of whom has made seminal contributions to the movement, and none of whom have focused exclusively on AGI. I'm ambivalent about Ng, who is a very important though less central figure, but if others believe he should be excluded, I'd support that decision (I say this as the person who created Ng's Wikipedia entry). Concerning Jacy's role in the animal movement, I would disagree with you, since I think Peter Singer is a more important figure, and Nick Cooney a figure of comparable importance; and both Singer and Cooney have written multiple books on animals, not just one like Jacy. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 16:28, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I was not suggesting Parfit was focused on AGI. Singer is already on the list and is more focused on other cause areas, and Cooney's book was not about EA itself. It was only about animals, and effectiveness. I don't think it actually mentions EA once. I still hold the view that the list leans towards AGI and that Reese merits inclusion as a public figure strongly associated with EA. If it were a choice between Peter Singer and Jacy Reese, then in that case I would favor including Peter Singer. Bodole (talk) 16:34, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you were suggesting that Parfit had focused on AGI (I've edited my comment to reflect this). According to the latest (2018) EA Survey, animal welfare is the fifth cause that respondents regard as most important. If we restrict the list to Bostrom, Karnofsky, MacAskill, Moskovitz, Ng, Ord, Parfit, Singer and Yudkowsky, we would have two out of nine people who have made central contributions to animal welfare: Singer, regarded by many as the founder of the animal welfare movement, and Ng, the founder of welfare biology. Karnofsky and Moskovitz are also notable for running and funding, respectively, a grantmaking organization known for making animal welfare one of their top priorities. So my impression is that the animal movement is pretty well represented. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 16:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * My guess is that Brian Tomasik and Lewis Bollard are more influential in effective animal advocacy than Jacy. Brian for having made welfare biology more mainstream, and Lewis for allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to effective animal causes as well as writing the most highly regarded EA animal newsletter. Both of them seem pretty reasonable to include in the info box, in my humble opinion. Xodarap00 (talk) 17:28, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I think this rhetoric is misleading. First, this is Wikipedia, not an EA debate. Being in the info box requires notability, criteria for which are well-established on Wikipedia. We can't use EA counterfactual impact or donations in lieu of that. If you want these other people to be in the list instead of or in addition to current entries, you should go about the standardized route of making a page and having it vetted by the Wikipedia community if you believe the person meets notability criteria. Second, figures like Moskovitz who have made contributions to multiple cause areas do not constitute a representative selection of People or Key Figures, at least while you include Bostrom and Yudkowsky, who have to my impression almost exclusively been involved in AI and other x-risk issues. Third, since Ng is a unique example, he has hardly been involved in EA ideas, discussion, or actions. He has some interesting pre-EA discussion of similar concepts to EA itself, but that hardly makes him a Key Figure in EA itself. Fourth, Parfit seems like an established philosopher who has discussed EA at times, but hardly constitutes a Key Figure of EA given his limited role in the movement or EA-specific intellectual contributions. Bodole (talk) 17:42, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * How about this? Following the utilitarianism infobox model, we list people in two separate categories: Key Figures and Predecessors. We can then list Parfit and Ng (and perhaps a couple of other people, to be later decided) as Predecessors, and Bostrom, Karnofsky, MacAskill, Moskovitz, Ord, Singer and Yudkowsky as Key Figures. This would leave us with two Key Figures focusing primarily on x-risk (Bostrom and Yudkowsky), one Key Figure focusing primarily on poverty (Ord), one Key Figure focusing roughly equally on poverty and animals (Singer), and three "generalists" (Karnofsky, MacAskill and Moskovitz). I think this matches current EA cause prioritization, as recorded in the survey cited above, reasonably well. (For reference, the utilitarianism infobox lists six Precedessors and five Key Figures.) Pablo Stafforini (talk) 18:06, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You just took your original idea and divided it into two lists... The people who are intellectual predecessors are now more clearly labeled, but that's hardly a difference. I would be okay with that if, in addition to Bostrom and Yudkowsky (x-risk), there were Reese for animal welfare. I'm not personally onboard with the EA Survey criteria, but by that, with the generalists being fairly focused on cause prioritization, rationality, and global poverty, seems like an accurate distribution. Otherwise it still seems misleading to me. Bodole (talk) 18:25, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's accurate to say that the generalists are "fairly focused on cause prioritization, rationality, and global poverty". In particular, none of the people on that list are primarily focused on rationality, and global poverty was only an early focus of Karnofsky; currently, he is focused more or less equally on animals, poverty and x-risk, if one is to judge by the allocation of OpenPhil funding. Similar remarks apply to Moskovitz. As for MacAskill, he has multiple interests: a general book on EA, several papers on moral uncertainty, one paper on the demandingness of morality, two papers on career choice, and one paper on animals. So I stand by my claim that the proposed list of people would be a reasonable reflection of current EA cause prioritization. I also add that this is only an approximate criterion, and the list of individuals doesn't have to perfectly match the areas covered by the movement. It would be like requiring that the list of Key Figures in the utilitarianism infobox were hedonists, preference-utilitarians, act-utilitarians, rule-utilitarians, and so on, to the degree that these positions are represented among the broader population of utilitarians. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 18:50, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * All of those claims seem rational to me, but none of it makes your set-up overall preferable. I agree it doesn't need to be a perfect match, which is why it strikes me as strange that you're so insistent that one prominent individual not be included. Bodole (talk) 18:55, 8 October 2019

Mmh, it seems we aren't understanding each other very well. My justification for excluding Jacy from the list of Key Figures has absolutely nothing to do with the impact of his inclusion on the representativeness of that list. I only agreed to enter that discussion because you previously objected that the list "is strongly loaded towards the AGI cause area". My argument for excluding Jacy is that he is a figure of at most the stature of the other individuals we agreed to remove. This is also RyanCarey1's argument. Xodarap00 probably agrees with this, too, but I'm not sure. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 19:13, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand that, and I think the links and facts provided in this discussion have more than established sufficient WP:NOTE and relevant to effective altruism itself. Bodole (talk) 22:01, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Bodole:I proposed a compromise solution, and you immediately reverted it - your second reversion in 14 hours, so I have added a notice (Template:Uw-3rr) to your page to request that you please refrain from edit wars. Would you be able to propose some alternative compromise solution? My main aim is to have a navbar that sends people to pages most relevant to the movement - it would seem good to add more peripheral figures somewhere, but perhaps in a separate "list of people in the effective altruism movement" or similar.RyanCarey1 (talk) 23:19, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I also agree with the compromise solution Ryan has proposed. Note that this proposal excludes Liv Boree, who has five times the Twitter followers that Jacy does. Xodarap00 (talk) 23:38, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Of course you agree. You're all part of the same clique within EA and share the same, in my humble opinion, loaded view of community representation. I don't see this as a compromise solution given it just goes with your opinion. I reverted it because it was you forcibly imposing your view on the main page in the middle of a lengthy and unresolved discussion on the talk page. That is not edit warring.


 * I propose a compromise solution of no People section, a Key Figures section that includes Nick Bostrom, Holden Karnofsky, William MacAskill, Dustin Moskovitz, Toby Ord, Jacy Reese, Peter Singer, and Eliezer Yudkowsky, and a Predecessors section that includes Yew-Kwang Ng and Derek Parfit (and probably including more Predecessors later). I believe I have provided plenty of justification for this list above. If we want a more restrictive definition then I would propose only having a Key Figures list that has Holden Karnofsky, William MacAskill, Dustin Moskovitz, and Peter Singer. Or alternatively, removing people sections in general from the infobox.


 * That's two compromise solutions that both involve me giving up a lot here. I don't know how I can be any fairer considering the extensive documentation above. Bodole (talk) 11:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)


 * In the spirit of cooperation, I'll put the ad hominem to one side. It's not a perfect solution, but I personally would be okay, at least for the time being, with a Key Figures section that lists just Holden Karnofsky, William MacAskill, Dustin Moskovitz, Peter Singer, and Toby Ord. (Given that Toby, alongside Will, started the movement, and Toby was the founder of Giving What We Can, the first EA organization.) I don't have any objection to people adding predecessors (like Ng and Parfit). RyanCarey1 (talk) 11:53, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I think this has gone for far too long. I am now implementing RyanCarey1's original proposal. Bodole is just not cooperating, he is assuming bad faith, and he shows signs of being a single-purpose account (just ~40 edits prior to this discussion with about half being about Jacy, his book or his organization). If anyone disagrees, please address the arguments that have been made so far before making any further changes, including that Jacy is a figure of equal or less stature than the people we all, including Bodole, tentatively agreed to remove; that Jacy is a figure of equal or less stature than notable EAs on Wikipedia who aren't part of the nav box, including Nick Cooney; that Jacy is a figure of equal or less stature than all the people not on Wikipedia I listed, which would imply that if Jacy is a Key Figure, the EA movement would have dozens of such figures; that Jacy's claim to being a co-founder of the EA movement is baseless; that a compromise solution was accepted by Xodarap00 and myself, despite each of us initially proposing a different solution (I disagree with removing Hilary Greaves, but am willing to accept her exclusion so that we can move forward); that the user who initially added Jacy to the nav box now agrees he should not have been added and should now be removed; and that the solution being implemented is in line with how the utilitarianism—a close cousin of EA—nav box is organized. Thanks. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 12:37, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This is not a compromise solution. This is you forcing your opinion despite evidence to the contrary provided by me and David Gerard. I am now escalating the issue. Bodole (talk) 13:45, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I have now opened a discussion at the Dispute resolution noticeboard "Content disputes can hold up article development and make editing difficult for editors. You are not required to participate, but you are both invited and encouraged to help this dispute come to a resolution. Please join us to help form a consensus. Thank you!" Bodole (talk) 13:59, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The dispute looks like it was archived to https://en.wikipediam.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_181 Jeff (talk) 19:49, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Causes
Should this even be here? None of these are even slightly exclusive to EA - feels like an ambit claim. I certainly wouldn't transclude this template onto all of these, for instance. If each and every one of these is a subject of concern for EA, is there relevant mainstream third-party RS citation of this list in Effective altruism or somewhere similar? Because if there isn't relevant mainstream third-party RS citation for each of these being relevant to the topic of EA, then this is just someone including an uncited list in a template that they wouldn't be able to include in article space. I see the template is already being added to articles that don't even mention EA - the purpose of a Wikipedia template isn't to be advertising for a movement - David Gerard (talk) 13:21, 8 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Fair point, I'm reverting the templates I've added which don't mention EA on the page Throughthemind (talk) 14:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)


 * I'm also unsure about the alphabetization here since most of these things have natural groupings such as by cause area. I don't really have an opinion on it, but I wanted to raise the suggestion. Bodole (talk) 15:35, 8 October 2019 (UTC)


 * One option would be to replace 'cause' with 'focus area', to make it clearer that these aren't necessarily contributions made by the EA movement, but areas that the movement prioritizes. I agree with David that the template shouldn't be added to articles that don't mention EA. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 16:32, 8 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Seconded on those two changes. Bodole (talk) 16:35, 8 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I've changed 'causes' to 'focus areas' per your suggestions Throughthemind (talk) 17:43, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

RFC on Key People

 * The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There is discussion about which scholars to include in the list of Key Figures of Effective Altruism in the Effective altruism template. The names on which there is agreement are:
 * William MacAskill
 * Toby Ord
 * Holden Karnofsky
 * Eliezer Yudkowsky
 * Dustin Moskovitz
 * Peter Singer
 * Liv Boeree
 * Hilary Greaves

A. Should Jacy Reese be included in the list?

B. Should Nick Bostrom, Yew-Kwang Ng, Derek Parfit, and Eliezer Yudkowsky be included in the list?

Please answer Yes or No to the above questions in the appropriate sections. Do not engage in back-and-forth discussion in the Survey. Back-and-forth discussion is permitted in the Threaded Discussion. (That's what it's for.)

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:09, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

A. Reese
No. He is a notable figure, but not a key figure; his importance is comparable to that of other notable figures which we aren't including, such as Nick Cooney. I propose instead to add Jacy (together with Boeree, Cooney and others—see my comment in the threaded discussion) to a List of people associated with effective altruism, by analogy to the List of utilitarians, and reserve the Infobox for the half-dozen or so most important figures in the movement's history, just like the Utilitarianism Infobox does. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 02:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

No. RyanCarey1 (talk) 10:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

No. This back-and-forth was all started by an article, in which a journalist said:

"On his website, he calls himself “a co-founder of the effective altruism movement.” Huh? He was in high school in 2009 when Will MacAskill and Toby Ord started Giving What We Can, the first effective-altruism organization, and he was a college sophomore when the term effective altruism was coined. When I asked him about this, Reese replied: "Regarding “cofounder,” there were many people involved in the beginnings of the effective altruism community, including people at Giving What We Can, GiveWell, and in online internet forums like LessWrong and Felicifia. I was involved in many early discussions and early strategizing for the community (before and after it settled on the name “effective altruism”). I volunteered with Giving What We Can and helped run the first effective altruism student network called THINK.""

Taking these claims in turn:


 * 1) Jacy self-reports that he became a member of Giving What We Can (GWWC) in 2016, seven years after GWWC was founded. His name does not appear on the GWWC website at all, as far as I can tell. I will take him at his word that he did some sort of volunteer work, but clearly it was not in a crucial role, nor was at a time when he could plausibly be said to "cofound" the organization.
 * 2) THINK is not listed on the EA wiki page at all, so I am not sure how notable it is, but their page says that Mark Lee was the founder, Marcus Davis was "one of the main people" and Tom Ash was "coordinating central help". Jacy is listed as a "consultant", which I think would make him at most the fourth most notable person from THINK (which is itself an organization not notable enough to be on Wikipedia or mentioned in the effective altruism page).

This seems like a pretty clear-cut decision: we have the good fortune of Jacy himself stating in a reliable source the argument for him being considered a "cofounder", and we are able to find reliable sources which disprove those. Xodarap00 (talk) 13:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. The three users above unfortunately represent a specific faction and clique within EA that seems intent on battleground editing this list based on their own agenda. When we look at the facts, we see that Jacy Reese:


 * 1) Was on the board of directors and chairman for a time at Animal Charity Evaluators, then a researcher. (ACE is the most prominent EA organization working on animal welfare, which is one of the main "cause areas" within EA.)
 * 2) Co-founded the Sentience Institute, another prominent EA organization
 * 3) Wrote one of a handful of books on EA, and the only one explicitly on both EA and animal welfare (The End of Animal Farming)
 * 4) Has given many talks about EA from 2014 to present, possibly more than any other person (see for example a quick YouTube search or his recent book tour
 * 5) Has written many articles about EA, including blog posts in the EA community and articles for major media outlets (see this list of writings)
 * 6) Has more social media followers than almost anyone in EA (Twitter, Instagram. Facebook)

This seems like enough key involvement in EA to put him in at least the top 10 maybe even top 5. I have yet to see anyone provide evidence otherwise such as by making lists like the above about other potential list entries.

It is unclear what exactly makes someone worthy of inclusion in an infobox. The above list seems like a strong combination of involvement and general notability. Reese is younger than the other entries and more focused on the animal welfare cause area, but those are not valid criteria in my opinion. I think we need to apply a consistent and fair standard to the different people in the infobox. There is also the subject of Reese’s early contributions to EA, a period where little is documented outside of the large formal EA organizations. But my personal knowledge is that he created and moderated many if not most of the first EA social media groups as the community was forming, at a time when EA mostly existed as informal discussions and relationships rather than formal organizations. He also helped create THINK and volunteered at GWWC in the early days of EA.

I also emphasize here: This is not about whether Reese is a cofounder of EA. That is a separate discussion with limited relevance, particularly since clearly other entries in the list are not cofounders. Bodole (talk) 14:43, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

No. Reese is of comparable notability to many, many others in the movement. Any standard that would put him on the list would also put dozens more. This doesn't diminish his importance; rather it's reflective of the fact that a LOT of people have done as much or more than he has in EA. &mdash; Eric Herboso 11:21, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. User:Bodole's argument makes sense to me. RockingGeo (talk) 06:53, 7 November 2019 (UTC) Striking per this sockpuppet block and Sockpuppet investigations/RockingGeo. Cunard (talk) 02:27, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

B. Bostrom, Ng, Parfit, Yudkowsky
Yes. Bostrom, Parfit and Yudkowsky are key figures in EA, I think. I also believe this about Ng, but see my comment below in the threaded discussion. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 02:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. RyanCarey1 (talk) 10:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

No. These are at best tangential figures in EA. Bostrom and Yudkowsky are parts of the "AI safety" or "existential risk" movements. Ng and Parfit are/were just academics who happen to have done relevant work to EA. There seems to be little to no case presented for their role as Key Figures in EA itself. Bodole (talk) 14:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. &mdash; Eric Herboso 11:21, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Yes. Bostrom: There are reliable scholarly sources that cite his name and contributions to effective altruism. I would like to cite the information provided by Bodole regarding Bostrom's focus on AI safety. There is reporting on Bostrom's interactions with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs (see, for example, this Vox report) and he specifically plays a part in the push to get tech giants notice the moral metrics of EA. Darwin Naz (talk) 22:55, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

No. Bodole makes sense. Some of their articles don't even mention EA. RockingGeo (talk) 06:55, 7 November 2019 (UTC) Striking per this sockpuppet block and Sockpuppet investigations/RockingGeo. Cunard (talk) 02:27, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Threaded Discussion

 * In the "The names on which there is agreement" list, you include Eliezer Yudkowsky, but you also include him in the options for B, indicating that his inclusion needs debating. Which is it? Gbear605 (talk) 02:48, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I think he should be excluded from "The names on which there is agreement" list, since Bodole wasn't happy with his inclusion. But maybe Bodole can clarify their preference? Pablo Stafforini (talk) 03:12, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I want to make it clear that I (1) favor the exclusion of Boeree in addition to Reese and (2) do not favor, but would support, the exclusion of Greaves and/or Ng if this is a solution Bodole or others prefer more (even if it falls short from being the solution they prefer the most). My overall view is that there is a natural bar for inclusion that Bostrom, Karnofsky, MacAskill, Moskovitz, Ord, Parfit, Singer, Yudkowsky clearly pass, that Boeree and Reese do not pass, and that Greaves and Ng may or may not pass, depending on how one answers certain questions that reasonable people may disagree about. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 02:57, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I was invited here by a bot. I would participate but am not sure what criteria are being used to to determine inclusion and exclusion. It seems pretty subjective so far ("natural bar" =? "walks like a duck" or "I know it when I see it") and I think it would help everyone if we agreed on a policy based approach, for instance indentify some sources we can use. Jojalozzo (talk) 13:23, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Pretty much is. The discussion is factions within a small subculture, determining who in their faction gets in. There needs to be more of a criterion - David Gerard (talk) 13:45, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I agree this is an issue. There's some discussion of the 'key figures' criterion here. (I added the heading so I could link to it; I assume that's okay. Feel free to remove it if not.) As I note in my vote, I was understanding the criterion by analogy with the Utilitarianism Infobox, as being restricted to half a dozen or so most important people in the movement's history, but others may disagree. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 13:51, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The criterion Sir Paul suggests is what I have been using. You may also be interested in my answer, which contains a summary of Jacy's self-claimed "cofounder" status. Xodarap00 (talk) 14:33, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I also would like there to be a policy based approach, but as David Gerard says, there is a clique that seems insistent on making this about who they like and dislike using inconsistent criteria like saying Reese is not a co-founder and therefore not eligible, and yet many others on the list are clearly not co-founders. Bodole (talk) 14:46, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * There have been many misleading claims made in this discussion and I want to clarify one here. Reese was only listed a "Consultant" for THINK on a current staff page (which itself seems outdated). This does not at all mean Reese did not have a different, perhaps more important, role at an earlier stage of THINK's existence. But let us keep in mind that the involvement in THINK is only a very small part of Reese's overall involvement in EA. Bodole (talk) 14:48, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * There is not agreement on the inclusion of Liv Boeree and Hilary Greaves. See discussions earlier on this page and the proposal on the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. I believe that if Jacy Reese is excluded, then that is a strict enough cutoff that they should be excluded as well. They have only secondary involvement in EA. Bodole (talk) 14:59, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Bodole, I thought you had agreed to refrain from further personal attacks and unsubstantiated accusations, but I see that in your vote above you accuse me and others of being part of "a specific faction and clique within EA that seems intent on battleground editing this list based on their own agenda." I ask you to please withdraw that claim or I will have to report your behavior, which as noted before shows a consistent pattern of battleground editing from a single-purpose account. Please stop. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 15:28, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * That is neither an attack nor an accusation. It is first a matter-of-fact statement of your involvements. in EA. You worked closely with Will MacAskill for years, another potential entry in this list, which seems like a clear conflict of interest to me. RyanCarey1 also works with in that proximity at the Future of Humanity Institute on the same topic, and therefore is a co-worker. I cannot name Xodarap00's involvement without doxxing, but they are also closely involved with the artificial intelligence and existential risk groups within EA. But all of this involvement is fine! It is just important when readers see this discussion that they understand the context of the first 3 "No" votes that quickly arrived when this RFC was posted.


 * My other part "seems intent on battleground editing this list based on their own agenda" is also very relevant context for RFC visitors who have not read through everything else on their page. It is just my opinion but if they would like to check on it they only need to read the discussion above and on the Noticeboard.


 * And I do not appreciate your statement that I have "agreed to refrain from further personal attacks and unsubstantiated accusations," since it implies I agree with you that I was doing so in the first place. I am simply pointing out important context and features of your editing. That is not a personal attack or unsubstantiated accusation.


 * Also I should say that I am sorry if any of this comment treads too closely on doxxing. I only say it in direct response to Pablo Stafforini's threat to report me and will happily delete it if a moderator tells me to. Bodole (talk) 15:42, 17 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Concur. Sir Paul, do you have an objective criterion to offer? - David Gerard (talk) 17:56, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Here's my best attempt to specify an objective criterion: We should include all and only people that relevant RSs in the main EA entry list explicitly as being central to the founding of the EA movement, or that are the most natural representatives of the entities listed by such RSs as being central to the founding of that movement.
 * Currently, the EA article lists two relevant RSs. First, the book Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, by Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, which says: "Effective altruism ... began in 2009 when Toby Ord founded Giving What We Can, an organization that informs people how much good they can do by donating to the most highly effective organizations. Peter Singer’s widely reprinted essay ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’ played a role, as did Nick Bostrom’s writings emphasizing the importance of reducing the risk of human extinction. Will MacAskill worked with Ord to set up Giving What We Can, soon followed by other organizations such as GiveWell, Less Wrong, and The Life You Can Save, all of which combined to develop effective altruism into a worldwide movement."
 * Secondly, the article "The Lessons of Effective Altruism", by Jennifer C. Rubenstein, which says: "Effective Altruism had two founding moments. In the mid-2000s, MacAskill and another philosophy graduate student at Oxford, Toby Ord, began researching the cost-effectiveness of charities fighting global poverty. In 2009 they started the EA “meta-charity” Giving What We Can, which encourages people to donate at least 10 percent of their income to the charities with the greatest positive impact. At around the same time, two hedge-fund analysts, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld, independently founded another organization, GiveWell, which focuses on in-depth research to identify the charities that do the most good—a determination that incorporates, but is not limited to, being highly cost-effective. Thus, EA came of age simultaneously in Oxford, where it has been especially popular among young analytic philosophers, and in Silicon Valley, where it has been especially popular among young tech entrepreneurs (GiveWell is located in San Francisco)."
 * These RSs mention Bostrom, Hassenfeld, Karnofsky, MacAskill and Ord explicitly. (Note that Hassenfeld is not on Wikipedia, so he is independently excluded.) In addition, Singer and Yudkowsky would also qualify as being the most natural representatives of The Life You Can Save and LessWrong, respectively. The RSs do not mention the Open Philanthropy Project explicitly, but only because at the time OpenPhil hadn't branched off from GiveWell; and the pivotal role of OpenPhil in the EA movement is undisputed, I believe. So that would justify the inclusion of Moskovitz. This criterion still excludes Boeree, Greaves, Ng, Parfit and Reese. I believe Ng and Parfit, and probably also Greaves, are also key EA figures, but I admit my proposed criterion excludes them, so would support their exclusion if this helps us move forward. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 18:27, 17 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Summary RockingGeo's account is flagged as a sock puppet. Ignoring that, 4/5 people voted "no" on Jacy's inclusion and 4/5 voted "yes" on Bostrom, Ng, Parfit, Yudkowsky. Requesting formal closure. Xodarap00 (talk) 19:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inappropriate closure of RFC
That was definitely not "clear consensus", ! We had 2 new contributors to the discussion, with 1 yes vote who seems to have been a sockpuppet (sockpuppeting on unrelated matters, though it seems the issue is currently being debated), and 1 no vote from someone who is also a member of the same effective altruism community. Of course "Consensus is not determined by counting heads," so we need to look at "strength of argument." And I have still not seen anyone in the "yes" category engage with the arguments I outlined above. So I am challenging this closure per WP:CLOSE and will take it to AN if unresolved.

"When we look at the facts, we see that Jacy Reese:


 * 1) Was on the board of directors and chairman for a time at Animal Charity Evaluators, then a researcher. (ACE is the most prominent EA organization working on animal welfare, which is one of the main "cause areas" within EA.)
 * 2) Co-founded the Sentience Institute, another prominent EA organization
 * 3) Wrote one of a handful of books on EA, and the only one explicitly on both EA and animal welfare (The End of Animal Farming)
 * 4) Has given many talks about EA from 2014 to present, possibly more than any other person (see for example a quick YouTube search or his recent book tour
 * 5) Has written many articles about EA, including blog posts in the EA community and articles for major media outlets (see this list of writings)
 * 6) Has more social media followers than almost anyone in EA (Twitter, Instagram. Facebook)"

Bodole (talk) 20:13, 1 December 2019 (UTC)


 * , you may wish to look over this one again - David Gerard (talk) 23:58, 1 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the ping, . As uninvolved editor Jojalozzo wrote above, "It seems pretty subjective so far ("natural bar" =? "walks like a duck" or "I know it when I see it") and I think it would help everyone if we agreed on a policy based approach, for instance indentify some sources we can use." There are no inclusion criteria established by prior consensus about who to include in the "Key Figures" list in this template. No editors cited a policy or guideline that provided guidance about who to include in this template. For Jacy Reese, the "exclude" side had three editors (I gave no weight to RyanCarey1 who did not provide a rationale) and the "include" side had one editor (I gave no weight to RockingGeo who was blocked as a sockpuppet). Both the "include" and "exclude" sides presented valid rationales for their positions. Whether to include Jacy Reese in the list is a matter of editorial judgment when there are no prevailing policies or guidelines or prior consensus on the inclusion criteria, so I closed the RfC as "exclude" as that was the position of nearly all of the RfC participants.  I encourage editors to come up with a clear inclusion criteria about when someone should be included in the list so that this is less subjective.  Cunard (talk) 01:02, 2 December 2019 (UTC)


 * , in what sense is that "clear consensus"? I understand the need to resolve one way or the other, but I don't think 3 editors on one side (and again, they all have major involvement in the effective altruism community and cause for bias on this topic!) and 1 editor on the other side constitutes "clear consensus" in any sense of the phrase. I do agree that a clear inclusion policy would be useful in the future. Maybe I will work on that if I have time. I also would like to see more uninvolved editors contribute to the discussion, since the evidence in favor of Reese's inclusion seems clear and unrebutted. But for the time being, I completely fail to see how "clear consensus" is an accurate description of the current RFC status. Bodole (talk) 14:05, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The consensus was clear: excluding sockpuppets, a single editor voted Yes, and four editors voted No, with three providing an accompanying justification for their votes (the fourth editor, RyanCarey1, also gave a justification for excluding Reese in the preceding discussion, so he probably felt it was unnecessary to reiterate it when casting the actual vote). Moreover, the editor who voted Yes is a single-purpose account, created a few months ago solely to promote Reese on Wikipedia: Bodole has 110 edits, virtually all of which are Reese-related, and has created two new articles, one about Reese's organization and one about Reese's book. By contrast, all the editors who voted No have been editing Wikipedia for at least several years. As for Bodole's arguments, they have been addressed at length above, in the course of a long discussion that lasted for over a month. Pablo Stafforini (talk) 14:22, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * That is not the meaning of "clear consensus." And as I have said before, I am making so many edits on this topic because I am having to defend Reese against this clique of POV editors (who have not been editing WP for a decade. Yet again provably false). I happened to contribute on this topic before I encountered this attack and when I saw it, felt it necessary to defend WP's editorial standards. Irregardless of that, it is still a 3 (or 4) to 1 (or 2) vote, with more than at least plausible "strength of argument" that has yet to be addressed by the editors vying against Reese's inclusion, contrary to your specious claim otherwise. Anyone who reads the previous discussion can see that. It is clearly not clear consensus. Bodole (talk) 21:29, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Three editors opposing inclusion with reasonable arguments and one editor supporting inclusion with reasonable arguments means that 75% of the RfC participants opposed inclusion. I consider that to be a clear consensus against inclusion. I agree that having more uninvolved editors participating in future discussions would be valuable. Cunard (talk) 10:02, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

When and How we should add new Key Figures to this list
In the past, there have been somewhat contentious arguments over which people count as "key figures" in the EA movement. There needs to be a high bar set here, given that the template will show these people's names on every EA-related wikipedia page. I recently removed Eliezer Yudkowsky, Kelsey Piper, and Scott Alexander, not because they aren't well known people in the EA community (they certainly are!), but because previous discussion on this talk page did not consider them to rise to the level of being a "key figure". I propose that while it may be appropriate to list every EA org on the template, when it comes to actual people, we should limit the list to just people that get substantial agreement on the talk page before they are added to the template key figure list. (See, for example, Pablo's expanded list above of several important-to-EA people that nevertheless shouldn't rise to the level of being a key figure.) &mdash; Eric Herboso 16:41, 1 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi Eric. My sense is that Yudkowsky should be included in the list of key figures. A quick look at the discussion above indicates that most participants were in favor of keeping him in the list. What do you think? Pablo (talk) 14:10, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
 * While I still believe that a high standard should be set for the key figure section of a template, I'd be comfortable adding Yudkowsky to the list. &mdash; Eric Herboso 04:41, 21 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Eric. I've reinstated him. Pablo (talk) 09:57, 23 September 2022 (UTC)