Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Effective Altruism


 * The following discussion is an archived proposal of the WikiProject below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the project's talk page (if created) or the WikiProject Council).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The proposed WikiProject was created at WikiProject Effective Altruism. Ruthgrace (talk) 16:58, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Description
A WikiProject to coordinate work on articles related to effective altruism. Enervation (talk) 06:03, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

List of important pages and categories for this proposed group
 * [Many relevant Wiki articles are listed in this template]
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)
 * existential risk from artificial general intelligence (number of pages in the category: 33)


 * List of WikiProjects currently on the talk pages of those articles
 * Please invite these and any other similar groups to join the discussion about this proposal. See WikiProject_Council/Directory to find similar WikiProjects.




 * Why do you want to start a new group, instead of joining one of these existing groups?
 * Effective altruism encompasses many different topics, which may have little to no overlap in existing WikiProjects that are working on them. 80,000 Hours is under WikiProject Organizations and WikiProject United Kingdom; Effective altruism is under WikiProject Philosophy and WikiProject Animal rights. But effective altruism is associated with a sizeable community, so I think there are a good number of editors that are interested in improving or creating articles relevant to effective altruism, rather than having an interest in philosophy, animal rights, future studies, etc. per se. There are also many topics related to effective altruism that don't have an existing page despite meeting Wikipedia's notability criteria. WikiProject Effective altruism would help with coordinating work to fill in these gaps, which may be under-prioritized by other WikiProjects. Here are some examples:


 * The Life You Can Save (organization)
 * Giving Green
 * Evidence Action
 * ALLFED
 * Animal Equality
 * Cluelessness (in philosophy)
 * Moral patienthood (redirects to Moral agency which is a related but different topic)
 * Moral uncertainty
 * Rationalist community
 * The Alignment Problem
 * The AI Does Not Hate You
 * The Scout Mindset
 * X-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction
 * Sendwave (currently a redirect)

Support
Also, specify whether or not you would join the project.
 * 1) As the proposer, I'm happy to join and help set up the creation of this WikiProject. Enervation (talk) 06:03, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 2) Support and will enthusiastically join. &mdash; Eric Herboso 07:02, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 3) Support and will also happily join. &mdash; Ego.Eudaimonia (talk) 13:16, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 4) Support -- Vermeer dawn (talk) 14:01, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 5) Support — Pablo (talk) 14:59, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 6) Support — Throughthemind (talk) 16:59, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * 7) Support — Cuvs (talk) 03:09, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 8) Support and can contribute occasionally. Qzekrom (she/her &bull; talk) 05:33, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 9) Support -- and happy to join 4hedons (talk)
 * 10) Support — RyanCarey1 (talk) 13:44, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 11) Support and can contribute occasionally. -- Steve (talk) 13:47, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 12) Support and can contribute occasionally. -- Xodarap00 (talk) 17:15, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 13) Support — Niel.Bowerman (talk) 17:18, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 14) Support — Silence (talk) 18:49, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 15) Support — Biogeographist (talk) 21:46, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 16) Support -- Max.schons (talk) 14:45, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 17) Support and will enthustiastically join! -- Ruthgrace (talk) 19:25, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 18) Support and will happily join — Seaweed_Llama (talk) 22:05, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 19) Support and will happily join — MontanNito (talk) 09:25, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * 20) Support -- SoerenMind (talk) 15:12, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Comment: We will see how much support this proposal receives, but initially I am skeptical that there are enough active editors to make an EA WikiProject worthwhile. Over the past couple of years, I have not even seen anyone step up to address the issues identified in the first (failed) good article review of Effective altruism at Talk:Effective altruism/GA1. If we can't even get the main article on effective altruism to good article status after two years, how are we going to have a productive EA WikiProject? Furthermore, if people are really interested in practicing effective altruism, is editing Wikipedia really the best use of their time? Shouldn't they be using their time earning to give or something like that? Or are the editors here interested in ethnographically studying effective altruism instead of practicing it? I don't know the answers to these questions, but this is what I am asking myself, and these doubts are why I don't initially support this proposal. (By the way, I was not sure how to format my comment—please feel free to make minor formatting changes to this comment if I am formatting this in a non-standard way.) Biogeographist (talk) 16:15, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * So far, we have six active editors supporting this WikiProject, after just 12 hours since I made this proposal. We'll have to see how much time we have to dedicate to improve EA articles but we've cleared that metric at least. The Effective altruism article looks fairly strong to me already, and I think improving it from B-class to "good article" is lower priority than getting some other articles (such as Longtermism) from "start class" to C-class. It takes a single highly motivated editor to improve the quality of a B-class article to "good article", but I don't think it's because of a lack of total EA editor time. One of the points in the good article review was adding a citation to the sentence "Global poverty alleviation has been a focus of some of the earliest and most prominent organizations associated with effective altruism." This claim is pretty obvious to me but it might be hard to find a source explicitly saying so. Personally, I don't feel that digging up a citation for this sentence is that valuable compared to resolving the flaws in other articles related to effective altruism. I'm not sure editing Wikipedia is the best use of one's time, but improving coverage of important topics is a strong option given that Wikipedia is such a prominent site. Enervation (talk) 19:11, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a good analysis, thanks. It makes me feel better about the lack of progress in editing Effective altruism, which I was quite discouraged about before. I was half joking about the "is editing Wikipedia really the best use of their time?" question, although it is a question I often ask myself seriously. Sometimes I look at the number of pageviews of an article to determine if the article is a high priority for my editing time. If I see a shockingly bad article with sky-high pageviews, I feel like an ER doctor rushing to save the world from a dangerous misinformation infection, but I think you're right that the effective altruism article isn't a level of bad that inspires ER action. The claim that you quoted could probably be found in Singer's The Most Good You Can Do, although when I cited that book in the EA article I felt like I was complicit in citogenesis, since Singer quotes Wikipedia (p. 4) for his standard definition of effective altruism. Biogeographist (talk) 04:30, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for all your hard work in improving the Effective altruism article! I haven't read The Most Good You Can Do, thanks for the pointer. Enervation (talk)
 * Speaking for myself, there was a prominent editor with an ax to grind who made editing EA-related pages a real headache. They have since been banned from some categories of pages, and I'm optimistic they either won't show up here or can be banned if they do show up, making the editing experience much more pleasant. Xodarap00 (talk) 17:23, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: I've posted in the EA Creatives and Communicators Slack to see if anyone is interested in joining. However, I'm worried that we won't get enough active contributors to form a WikiProject (the guide says: "While there are no hard rules for what constitutes 'sufficient' support, projects that are likely to succeed tend to start with at least 6 to 12 active Wikipedians."). In that case, we should think about starting as a task force of an existing project or merging with one. EA is interdisciplinary – EA-related topics span across philosophy, statistics, and the social sciences – so it'd be an awkward fit for any of the WikiProjects for those subjects. But I could see us merging with the Futures studies WikiProject. Qzekrom (she/her &bull; talk) 06:08, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for spreading this proposal! I'm more optimistic that we'll reach a sufficient number of active editors for this WikiProject to get off the ground. We already have 5 users who have stated that they are willing to contribute to the project (4.5 if we count you, talk, as 0.5). As you point out, due to effective altruism's interdisciplinary nature, the overlap of an EA WikiProject with any of the existing WikiProjects will be very limited. Consequently, I think there would be a significant benefit to this proposal succeeding. I expect a WikiProject on EA to make coordination and collective prioritisation easier, including by welcoming Wikipedia-newcomers who are interested in EA-related topics. &mdash; Ego.Eudaimonia (talk) 12:43, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Make that six! I appreciate your optimism! Qzekrom (she/her &bull; talk) 15:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Suggestion: We should upload an SVG version of the EA lightbulb logo (available here) to Wikimedia Commons. I don't know who owns the copyright to it, but we could find out and obtain a Creative Commons license from them. Then it would be available to use in userboxes and the WikiProject page, not just on relevant articles under fair use. Qzekrom (she/her &bull; talk) 21:55, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I will email someone at CEA and report back. I believe they own the copyright. Ruthgrace (talk) 19:27, 2 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: Well, it looks to me like we have overwhelming support!! Reading the instructions here, I guess it's okay to close the proposal and make the project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Closing_proposals). I'm going to try to do it since I haven't done it before. I'll just get it to the stage where I can make the little badge to put on my user profile, since that's exciting, and then other people can help fill out more info on the wikiproject page itself. Ruthgrace (talk) 16:54, 3 December 2021 (UTC)