Welcome to the Effective Altruism Forum, where people working to do the most good share ideas, coordinate, and learn from each other.

Getting started on the Forum

If you’re new to Effective Altruism, I’d recommend first reading our intro essay. After that, if you’re excited for more, you can check out our handbook, or sign up for an online introductory course.

If you want to learn more about the EA Forum and what our members are thinking about right now, my top recommendation is to sign up for our weekly email digest. In the digest,  we share the best posts from the previous week, every Wednesday. It’s the easiest way to get to know the best of the Forum.

If you have any questions — contact us.

Contributing to the EA Forum

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you should consider writing on the EA Forum.

However, your first interaction on the EA Forum probably shouldn’t be a post^[1]. The EA Forum has a particular set of norms, the most unique of which being:

1. Everything on the frontpage must be on-topic, i.e. it must be relevant to the project of doing the most good we can,
2. Reasoning is expected to be as transparent and honest as possible. Forum users often share their uncertainties, rather than papering over them.
3. We expect kind and constructive engagement — moderators will intervene if commenters are getting rude.

It can take some time to acclimatise to these norms, and we moderators often find ourselves moving first posts to ‘personal blog’ — i.e. where they won’t be seen on the frontpage by default — because they break one of these norms (especially (1) and (3)).

As a first move, I’d recommend introducing yourself in the intro thread, and then keeping your eyes peeled for posts that you’d like to contribute to (perhaps by reading the Digest). When you find a post that interests you, leave a comment that: asks a question, rebuts a point (kindly), continues the argument of the post, or thanks the author for posting^[2].

After that, if you have an idea for a post but you’re not sure if it is a good fit for the Forum, write a quick take about it and ask if people are interested in seeing a full post. Alternatively, message us and ask for feedback.

Still have questions?

Check out this collection of posts, on how to use the EA Forum^[3]. If you don’t find an answer, get in touch.

1. ^{^}

   This is an opinion, not a rule. 

2. ^{^}

    When I first started working on the EA Forum, I set myself a quota of two comments a week. Perhaps if, like me, you’re not starting out as a natural commenter, you might benefit from doing the same.

3. ^{^}

    Or ask an LLM your question, and give it the link to that collection.