TLDR; I'm not gonna go because they've bungled the application process to such an extent that I don't trust them to put together a competent event.
My application has now been kicked back twice with vague requests for more information about my involvement with EA. The first time was reasonable, with caveats. The second time was not.
First kickback: My answer to the "most recent or significant involvement" question only addressed what I feel is my most significant involvement, which is a rather speculative project with large prospects of failure and is not explicitly EA-branded. It did not address other forms of involvement because I wasn't asked. Probably I should have realized they needed more info than the literal answer to their question. So, bad application design but that's also on me for not answering the implicit expanded question. And conditional on the bad design, resolving the issue by requesting more info was the right way to handle it.
Second kickback: I responded to the first by providing the full, extremely detailed answer I should have gone with originally, which included enough info that if they had any doubts they could have verified my answers with other people or organizations in the community (who I didn't name but whose identities would be easily ascertainable to any sufficiently engaged EA based on the level of detail in my answers). They sent it back with exactly the same vague request for more information. Unless they want stalkerish levels of detail on every conversation I've ever had with another EA, there's no way to respond to this.
I'm not going to waste my time and theirs on endless rounds of edits, and given that the application process is probably the simplest part of organizing a conference, this leads me to expect a poorly put together event even if they were willing to admit me with my current answers. So I am simply not going. Policy, politics, or law-oriented EAs, if you wanna chat DM me.
I feel like EAGs applications are by default relatively short (≤ 2 hours), and as a general principle it seems good that CEA is actually asking for more information when needed (I didn't even know they did this).
As for whether the second request might be unreasonable, it seems like we don't have enough context on the project, your application, or the specific CEA email to make any strong judgements on this.
What I'm surprised about is that at this point it doesn't seem like you've had “endless rounds of edits”, but rather just two email exchanges. This feels uncharitable. Perhaps someone in the organizing team screwed up, so my natural response would be to ask for clarification if I felt the request was vague or unexpected?
I understand applications to EAGs can be burdensome and frustrating, but this also applies to the team reviewing them. Applications are not “the simplest part of organizing a conference”. They're challenging to get right, especially at scale.
Update: While I still think my general opinion was right, I have heard examples from other people getting asked extra information with vague emails as well. For me this suggests that there are issues worth fixing with the process.
I asked for clarification the first time around, in addition to providing copious information about my involvement. There is no further information to provide. At this point they should admit or reject, not ask for further edits. Yes, I am sure it's burdensome for the reviewing team if they are creating extra work for themselves by not just making a decision, but that's a burden created by their poor work process, not by the task itself.