The week starting February 23rd will be a Draft Amnesty Week on the EA Forum.
For those unfamiliar, Draft Amnesty is a week for posting incomplete, scrappy, or uncertain posts that you wouldn't make public without a nudge.
If you want to make sure you stay up to date on Forum events like this, you can follow our EA Forum events Google calendar.
What's next?
Next week, there will be two threads on the front page:
- What posts are you thinking about writing?
- What posts would you like someone to write?
Both of them are generally useful for coming up with ideas, but they might be particularly useful in the context of Draft Amnesty. For example, if you are thinking of writing something, but you're not sure if it's worth the time, you could post about it in the first thread and see if anybody is interested.
Also, me and @Sarah Cheng 🔸 will be at EAG San Francisco. If you happen to be there, we'd love it if you came to our Office Hours session on Sunday and let us know what you're thinking of writing.
FAQs:
If you have any questions which aren’t answered here, please ask them in the comments below, or message me. No question is too small for a message.
What is Draft Amnesty?
Draft Amnesty is an event which has run ~annually on the Forum for a few years. Many readers of the forum have some draft posts sitting in a Google Drive somewhere — posts that are too hard to finish, posts without clear conclusions, or posts that otherwise don’t live up to their normal standards. Draft Amnesty is an opportunity to let those posts out, with the reputational cover of it being 'Draft Amnesty Week'.
How Draft Amnesty Works
During Draft Amnesty Week, anyone can publish a post, as draft-y or polished as you like, tagged Draft Amnesty (2026). The only thing necessary to mark it as a Draft Amnesty post is the tag, but if you like, you can also copy the table (from this link) which allows you to contextualise your post for the readers.
These posts will be marked as Draft Amnesty posts on the frontpage, with a coloured "Draft Amnesty" tag. If readers don't want to see Draft Amnesty posts, they can filter them out, as shown on the GIF below in the post (i.e. you won't be annoying anyone who only wants to see polished posts).
How can I get involved?
- Check your drafts and see if you have any posts which might be suitable for Draft Amnesty. Message me if you aren’t sure.
- Check your mind, and see if you have any ideas for posts that you might want to share during draft amnesty week, in draft-y or outlined format.
- Run a co-writing event. Organise something with friends, or invite the Forum community with a quick take.
How draft-y can (or must) my post be?
Many posts last year were very draft-y while still being valuable. For example, see these posts with bullet point notes, collections of ideas, and full essay outlines.
Draft Amnesty posts can be fully polished. Draft Amnesty is also an excellent opportunity to post something you aren't sure is suitable for the Forum, or you aren't sure you still endorse, even if it is a polished post. For example, a couple of years ago I posted this post, which was actually very polished (I'd spent months on it) - but which I wouldn't have posted without the nudge from Draft Amnesty.
Draft Amnesty posts can sometimes be too draft-y. The reader should be able to understand your writing, even if it is incomplete, unpolished, or skeletal. For example, it is okay to have a bullet point such as:
- “I was going to write something about how this problem applies to the problem of moral knowledge here, but reading this Encyclopedia page because aversive, so I’m skipping over it for now”
However, it wouldn’t be as valuable for the reader to see a bullet point such as:
- “Insert moral knowledge stuff”
If you want a second pair of eyes- dm me.
I’m worried my draft isn’t high quality enough, should I still post it?
Short answer — yes please.
Long answer — the karma system is designed to show people posts that the forum community judges are valuable for forum readers. It isn't always perfect, and good posts with niche audiences aren't always given much karma. But if you are unsure whether people will find your draft valuable, you can defer to the karma system to decide. If you're finding yourself wavering on the decision, please lean towards posting!
Some more forum writing encouragement can be found in Lizka's thoughts on writing on the Forum (though she isn't writing with Draft Amnesty Week in mind).
If you want an unbiased arbiter, dm me, and I'll look at your draft.
What if I don't want to see Draft Amnesty posts?
If you would like to opt out of seeing Draft Amnesty posts, go to the Frontpage, and follow the steps in the GIF below (adjusted for the Draft Amnesty (2026) tag):
Who’s the Draft Amnesty Mascot?
Thanks for asking. Still Shrek. Still no one, not even dreamworks, has complained.
Why not commit now?
If you like, you can use the comments to commit to posting drafts. Just say something like "I'll post my draft about X" and then I'll check in with you later, to see if you need some accountability.