2022 update: This is now superseded by a new version of the same open thread.
(I have no association with the EA Forum team or CEA, and this idea comes with no official mandate. I'm open to suggestions of totally different ways of doing this.)
Update: Aaron here. This has our official mandate now, and I'm subscribed to the post so that I'll be notified of every comment. Please suggest tags!
2021 update: Michael here again. The EA's tag system is now paired with the EA Wiki, and so proposals on this post are now for "entries", which can mean tags, EA Wiki articles, or (most often) pages that serve both roles.
The EA Forum now has tags, and users can now make tags themselves. I think this is really cool, and I've now made a bunch of tags.
But I find it hard to decide whether some tag ideas are worth including, vs being too fine-grained or too similar to existing tags. I also feel some hesitation about taking too much unilateral action. I imagine some other forum users might feel the same way about tag ideas they have, some of which might be really good! (See also this thread.)
So I propose that this post becomes a thread where people can comment with a tag idea there's somewhat unsure about, and then other people can upvote it or downvote it based on whether they think it should indeed be its own tag. Details:
- I am not saying you should always comment here before making a tag. I have neither the power nor the inclination to stop you just making tags you're fairly confident should exist!
- I suggest having a low bar for commenting here, such as "this is just a thought that occurred to me" or "5% chance this tag should exist". It's often good to be open to raising all sorts of ideas when brainstorming, and apply most of the screening pressure after the ideas are raised.
- The tag ideas I've commented about myself are all "just spitballing".
- Feel free to also propose alternative tag labels, propose a rough tag description, note what other tags are related to this one, note what you see as the arguments for and against that tag, and/or list some posts that would be included in this tag. (But also feel free to simply suggest a tag label.)
- Feel free to comment on other people's ideas to do any of the above things (propose alternative labels, etc.).
- Make a separate comment for each tag idea.
- Probably upvote or downvote just based on the tag idea itself; to address the extra ideas in the comment (e.g., the proposed description), leave a reply.
- Maybe try not to hold back with the downvotes. People commenting here would do so specifically because they want other people's honest input, and they never claimed their tag idea was definitely good so the downvote isn't really disagreeing with them.
Also feel free to use this as a thread to discuss (and upvote or downvote suggestions regarding) existing tags that might not be worth having, or might be worth renaming or tweaking the scope of, or what-have-you. For example, I created the tag Political Polarisation, but I've also left a comment here about whether it should be changed or removed.
I think there's a relatively clear sense in which Arkhipov, Borlaug, and similar figures (e.g. winners of the Future of Life Award, names included in Scientists Greater than Einstein, and related characters profiled in Doing Good Better or the 80,000 Hours blog) count as having had an extraordinary positive impact and Pearce does not, namely, the sense in which also Ord, MacAskill, Tomasik, etc. don't count. I think it's probably unnecessary to try to specify in great detail what the criterion is, but the core element seems to be that the former are all examples of do-gooding that is extraordinary from both an EA and a common-sense perspective, whereas if you wanted to claim that e.g. Shulman or Christiano are among humanity's greatest benefactors, you'd probably need to make some arguments that a typical person would not find very persuasive. (The arguments for that conclusion would also likely be very brittle and fail to persuade most EAs, but that doesn't seem to be so central.)
So I think it really boils down to the question of how core a figure Pearce is in the EA movement, and as noted, my impression is that he just isn't a core enough figure. I say this, incidentally, as someone who admires him greatly and who has been profoundly influenced by his writings (some of which I translated into Spanish a long time ago), although I have also developed serious reservations about various aspects of his work over the years.