Effective Altruism Network Governance System

Cross-posted from: https://www.jamesnorris.org/effective-altruism-governance/ 

Note: Written a while back, so some of these issues could have been improved. I don't know the latest on what the community is like or collectively wants. 

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Introduction

I tentatively propose that the effective altruism movement should have a consensual process for determining the policies of the core components of what we could call the EA Network. Everything else would be governed by their respective organizations’ policies. Every item below should have officially determined policies, almost all of which should be publicly available to collaboratively update.

Every year all EA Network members would be able to opt in to vote and change any part of this system using a quadratic voting mechanism in a distributed online organization. 

The EA Network members would be chosen by (a) voluntary opt-in coupled with (b) >50% approval of a poll of 20 randomly selected existing members. Prospective members could go through this process up to 3 times over a 10 year period, but no more. 

Alternatively, the Centre for Effective Altruism could disband as a central governing entity and its projects could become fully independent or evolve in other ways.

EA Culture

1. Vision
2. Mission
3. Values
4. Definitions
5. Code of Conduct

Core EA Network

1. Centre for Effective Altruism (including Community Health & Special Projects)
   • Strategic plan of Centre for Effective Altruism
   • Policies for selection of employees, contractors, and other stakeholders of Centre for Effective Altruism, with a special emphasis on Community Health & Special Projects
2. Membership access
   • Policies for inclusion on community exclusion list and access to community exclusion list data from Centre for Effective Altruism (including Community Health & Special Projects) (latest clues as to policies embedded throughout their site)
3. Funding access and recommendations
   • Recommendations to funders via Centre for Effective Altruism (including Community Health & Special Projects)
   • Selection policies for grantees of Effective Altruism Funds
4. Event access
   • Participant and speaker selection for Effective Altruism Global, Effective Altruism Global X, and any other core events (latest guidelines, older guidelines, community discussion)
5. Online forum access
   • User access policies and moderation policies of Effective Altruism Forum (guidelines)
6. Job listings access
   • User access policies and listing policies on 80,000 Hours job board
7. Fellowships and trainings access
   • Recommendations to participant evaluators via Centre for Effective Altruism (including Community Health & Special Projects)
8. Websites access
   • Inclusion policies of content on effectivealtruism.org and other core websites, as well as usage of core website domains
9. Trademark access
   • Guidelines for usage of trademarks and other core assets
10. Social media account access
    • User access policies and moderation policies of Effective Altruists Facebook group and other accounts
11. Resources database access
    • User access policies and listing policies on EA Services Directory and EA Mental Health Navigator
12. Core EA materials mentions
    • Guidelines on the Centre for Effective Altruism’s website on inclusion and exclusion criteria for official mentions on the website, EA Handbook, EA Concepts, etc.
13. Media guidance material
    • Guidelines on the Centre for Effective Altruism’s website on who says what to whom and in which context

Other EA Governance Thinking

• Project on organizational reforms in EA: summary
• Further possible projects on EA reform
• EA structural reform ideas – Carla Zoe Cremer
• Democratising Risk: In Search of a Methodology to Study Existential Risk
• Democratising Risk – or how EA deals with critics
• What is effective altruism? How could it be improved? — EA Forum 

Organizations Contributing to EA Governance

• Centre for Effective Altruism: manages essentially all of the EA Core Network components
• Effective Ventures: manages Centre for Effective Altruism (is being disbanded)
• EA Good Governance Project: offers Boards of Directors
• Upgradable: offers Personal Advisory Boards for leaders in governance positions