All of Amy Labenz's Comments + Replies

Thanks so much for all of your work on the search committee!

I'm very excited to welcome you to the team, Zach! I like your vision for CEA, think you did a good job managing a very challenging situation with EV, and I'm personally very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work together!

To add to what Caitlin said, my experience as a hiring manager and as a candidate is that this often is not the case.

When I was hired at CEA I took roles on two different teams (Head of US Operations at CEA and the Events Team role at EAO, which later merged into CEA). My understanding at the time is that they didn’t have second choice candidates with my qualifications, and I was told by the EAO hiring manager that they would have not filled the position if I didn’t accept (I don’t remember whether I checked this with the CEA role).

I should note that I was... (read more)

Hey Emma,

Thanks so much for your bravery in sharing your story. I’m so sorry to hear about your experiences at EAG and the afterparty. I care about and value you a lot as a community member and a colleague and it makes me very sad to hear that you were uncomfortable. 

As I mentioned in my other reply, we are working with the community health team to investigate the EAG incident, and I plan to do what I can to help. 

I’d like to clarify that “using the event app to request meetings for romantic or sexual reasons” is clearly listed as one of the behaviors that “don’t belong at EA Global or related events” in our Code of Conduct (also found on our FAQ and registration form). Agreeing to this is a condition of attending, we take violations seriously, and we are working with the community health team to investigate this incident.

Thanks for the nudge! We've now posted more information here. 

Thanks! 

You need to be an attendee of the conference and then you can access it from within Swapcard. 

Working with you as ED for the past four years has been the happiest I’ve been at CEA. I'm really proud of the work we have done together and I’m so sorry for the personal toll it has taken on you. I hope you get some well-deserved rest and I look forward to working with you in your new advisory role. Thank you for everything, Max! 

We have used a few Swapcard alternatives at previous events (Bizzabo, Whova, Grip) and sadly Swapcard was the best despite its weaknesses. I know the EAG team has talked with you about this some Yonatan, but I'd be keen to hear if you have any updated recommendations! 

Thank you! That's encouraging :)

Generally, we get our contracts to have alcohol "by consumption" so we only pay for what we use. My experience with EA events is that people usually don't drink that much so the portion of spend on alcohol is typically not significant. 

Hi Evan,

Thanks for asking! I agree this can be pretty tough, especially because people are really different. 

In most cases (aside from external contractors) we don't pay people based on the number of hours that they work. So, salaries don't really vary based on the hours exactly. 

But, if someone truly is able to sustainably and productively work long hours, they will probably perform better.  As a result, this could increase the chances that they get promoted, which means higher salary etc.

However, I have also seen cases where people have ne... (read more)

I’m not sure. She linked to both sources her post, so I don’t think the issue is that she doesn’t know about them.

I did give her quite a bit of feedback on her application and things she might include/ways she might get involved in the future, which would have given her some additional insight into how we think about the process. That might be what she means.

A number of people have asked me whether I gave Constance permission to post a selection of my private Facebook communications and my email/the events team’s emails as part of this Forum post. I did not. I felt a bit uncomfortable with this, but I also did not ask her to take them down.

I saw that she had some suggestions for how I could improve my messages and my emails / other events team emails in the redline comments, and I agree some of her suggestions would have been improvements.

I was the person at CEA who spoke with Constance. I don’t remember asking her to promise anything, and CEA certainly didn't suggest an NDA. (Though I was surprised to see my private correspondence with her published here, since we didn't discuss publishing it.)

I don’t think I gave Constance additional insights into the admissions process that aren’t already published fairly widely (see here and CEA comments here). I did give her specific feedback on her application and her fit for the event, and other advice about how to get more engaged with the community... (read more)

Quick point of clarification: on the call, I recall Constance saying that her heart was set on EAG and that she was not interested in EAGx. Perhaps there was a miscommunication or I misunderstood, but that is the information I was working with throughout communications.

Hi Constance,

Quick point of clarification: I don't know what the anecdotes are referring to, but for what it's worth, we have 3.5 CEA FTEs working on EAG along with venue/production staff and volunteers. We do not have the ability to monitor all attendee interactions, nor do we want to.

We do have a community health point of contact onsite at all of our events. This person is available in case anyone experiences harassment, bullying, has a mental health concern, or needs other assistance.

Thanks for the suggestion, Zach!

I did explain to Constance why she was initially rejected as one of the things we discussed on an hour-long call. We also discussed additional information she was considering including, and I told her I thought she was a better fit for EAGx (she said she was not interested). It can be challenging to give a lot of guidance on how to change a specific application, especially in cases where the goal is to “get in”. I worry about providing information that will allow candidates to game the system. 

I don’t think this post reflects what I told Constance, perhaps because she disagrees with us. So, I want to stick to the policy for now.

Thanks for flagging this concern. I was worried someone might get the impression that this was related to animal welfare. While we don’t discuss the specifics of people’s applications publicly, that is definitely not the reason: we don’t penalize people for favoring animal welfare, global health, or existential risk reduction (or other prominent EA approaches).

Hi Constance,

I was sad to read your initial post and recognize how disappointed you are about not getting to come to this EAG. And I see you’ve put a lot of work into this post and your application. I’m sorry that the result wasn’t what you were hoping for. 

After our call (I’m happy to disclose that I am “X”), I was under the impression that you understood our decision, and I was happy to hear that you started getting involved with the in-person community after we spoke. 

As I mentioned to you, I recommend that you apply to an EAGx event, whi... (read more)

Here it is! Updated the image in the post too. 

Thanks for getting us, Nathan! LFG is the Events Team motto :) 

I can see why people are confused by this situation. I don't think it would be appropriate for me to give more detail publicly — it's our policy to not discuss the specifics of people's applications with other people besides them. 

We do want people who aren't sure if they'll get in, including students, to apply! But we suggest they should also consider applying to their nearest EAGx and not only to EAG.

We don't plan to tell people a recipe for getting accepted beyond the overall info we share with everyone about the event and the application process, ... (read more)

I’m really sorry to hear this. It is concerning to hear that being rejected from EAG made you feel like you were “turned away from even hanging out with people.” This is not our intention, and I’d be happy to chat with you about other resources and opportunities for in-person meetings with other EAs. 

We also get things wrong sometimes so I’m sad to hear you feel like our decision impacted your trajectory away from a highly devoted version of your life. The EAG admissions process is not intended to evaluate you as a person, it is for determining whethe... (read more)

Thanks for the comment, Hayley!  Btw, I loved seeing your dog Maple with the EAG swag in your original post, so cute 🥺 🐶 

Thank you! I'm so glad :) 

This comment (seen on Kerry Vaughan's Twitter) hit me hard:

That comment hit me hard too. 

In general, it hurts to make people feel bad and if I was optimizing the event for making myself/EAs feel good it would look different. 

I had an hour long call with the person who made that post and was able to connect them with resources and explain the admissions process and considerations that go into it in a way that seemed to help. I think we could do a better job of explaining these things publicly and I think we should do that.

I'm not certain of the admissions standard for that particular event, but the description says they "welcome those at all levels of engagement" so my guess is that the admissions process is for screening purposes. 

Eli mentioned in his reply to Scott that using an admissions process lets us try to screen out applicants who have caused problems at past events or who seem likely to cause problems. I'd have to check with our Community Events team to be sure that's the reason here. 

It is hard to talk about admissions in too much detail publicly. I agree that we want to make sure attendees have an understanding of EA but we also want to avoid the “guessing the teacher’s password” problem.  We also check for reasoning skills/epistemics. In other words, some people don’t know much about EA principles, but manage to exhibit good reasoning skills as they make the case for a clear plan, or by explaining that they are uncertain and laying out which options they are thinking about.
 

Thanks for the suggestion. We did do a parallel virtual event before and decided against doing it again because virtual underperformed the in-person event and split our attention. We were considering running our own separate virtual event this year, but instead, we are supporting  EAGx Virtual next month.

We haven’t tried a fully open event, but our 2016 was closer to open than our more recent events and came with various drawbacks.

Here are some suggestions written by Julia Wise from our Community Health team. 

<3

Thanks, Max! I agree that's confusing.

As Eli said, we are planning to revamp our website. 

In the meantime, I've edited the homepage to be more accurate / to match the information on our FAQ page and admissions page to say:

"EA Global is designed for people who have a solid understanding of the main concepts of effective altruism, and who are making decisions and taking significant actions based on them.

EA Global conferences are not the only events for people interested in effective altruism! EAGx conferences are locally-organized conferences designed p... (read more)

Thanks for the follow-up! I'm working on a different format that I think might address some of your concerns (I posted this quickly to link to it in an email about the new format). 

I agree I should add a caveat above. It seems like you and others are getting the impression that I think this is the best way to get feedback/I'm an expert on Doom Circles (which is understandable, since I chose to post about them!). I'll write something quickly now (I don't have childcare at the moment, so might make changes next week). 

Also agree I could have done m... (read more)

I'm really you've had a bad experience with negative, anonymous, unsolicited feedback and then felt bad about feeling bad. That sounds really tough. 

I'm glad you decided to post and wanted to reply to say thanks for sharing your experience. Given how tough negative feedback has been for you in the past I think that was brave, so wanted to reply and upvote to thank you. It sounds like a Doom Circle would not be a good fit for you and that's totally ok. I think having good self-knowledge and setting boundaries is great :) 

Thanks for your comment. I'm glad to hear you feel more comfortable setting boundaries now. I think it is a good flag that some people might not be in a place to do that, so we should be mindful of social / status dynamics and try our best to make this truly opt-in.

I agree there are other types of feedback that are probably better for most people in most cases, and that Doom Circles are just one format that is not right for lots of people. I meant to emphasize that in the post but I see that might not have come through. 

Yeah, I can see why you say that. I actually don't think I've done one with the ceremonial framing but I was trying to make a linkable description of Doom Circles, so I got information from folks who worked at CFAR. I would be interested in trying one with the framing, but I think I'd be too bashful to say the words he used myself :) 

Copying from the link, I think they were pretty explicitly doing something experimental. I wasn't involved in the workshop, I suppose they found the previous experiment with Hamming Circles useful and wanted to try a variation: 

The mathematician Richard Hamming allegedly liked to bother his colleagues at Bell Labs, as follows. First, he would ask a given fellow, "What are the most important questions in your field?" And then, after the poor fellow answered, he would follow up: "And why aren't you working on them?" (The full story here; an interesting

Oops! I intended to include the low number thing and I guess I didn't (I've your recommendation above). I'm not sure if that's how CFAR designed it but I also prefer small circles. I'm pretty sure I also agree with the other two, though I'm not sure about point two. I could imagine possibly getting good insights from someone who I didn't know well at the point of doing the circle but who had developed an impression of me somehow (I'm imagining that's what happened in Kaj's case, but I'm not sure about that). 

I didn't realize who I was talking to until after you sent me a DM (posting on the Forum used to be nightmare fuel for me but I am doing it more, in part because of some feedback from a Doom Circle). Anyway, I agree you probably wouldn't enjoy it. I think we could do a version together that would be safe for you, but no pressure at all! <3

I've added a disclaimer to the top of the post to make it clear that this isn't for everyone, I hope that helps!

Thanks, Jakub! 

I can't remember discussing feedback that I thought was wrong (and I agree with the reasons Kaj shares about why this can be disruptive during the Doom Circle). I have followed up with people about feedback that I thought was apt/useful to get more information. In a couple of cases, after discussing further, the person offered to help me address something they raised and I took them up on it :) 
 

Thanks, Kaj! This is really helpful. This inspired me to make a  picture of you as a cackling mad wizard using DALL·E. Let me know if you'd like to see it!

Thanks! Doom Circles are a specific format that CFAR came up with years ago. I didn't mean to suggest that this is the best format or the best way of giving feedback. But it is one that I've found useful sometimes and I wanted a link to use as a reference :)

I'm working with a colleague on a format that is closer to a combination of this and red-teaming a particular project. If it goes well I might post about that as well (I needed a link to Doom Circles for an email about the new format, which is what prompted this post). 

I'm not familiar with the opposite type of circle format. I have a few events coming up over the next month, so might not get back around to this, but I'd like to put more thought into a format like this. 

A couple of things that I have done that come to mind: 

• At a recent retreat, a colleague and I ran something like a doom circle followed by "gratitude/excitement" circles and I quite liked it. 
• In the "gentle" doom circle I described above we did something like an even split of doom followed by saying nice things. I found the nice really help

Thanks! Edited in the main post. Please let me know if you see other things I should change. I was wanting a link to Doom Circles for an event and didn't find one, so wrote this up and pushed it so it would be available to link to in an email. I'm guessing I missed a bunch/phrased some things in suboptimal ways  :).

To be clear, I think it can be unpleasant! The vibe can be something like "speak the truth even if your voice trembles" or it can be more gentle, depending on the participants and their preferences. 

Some things I wrote down from my last doom circle:

• I don't write enough / share my models enough
• I don't make time/money tradeoffs enough
• Something about my Midwestern accent might make people underestimate me
• People feel confused about why I don't live in a hub and this might make them think I'm not serious
• I should consider spending more time learning about t

Thanks for the feedback! I meant to post this as a description of a type of activity that won't be right for everyone. I needed a link to the description and couldn't find one online so wrote one. It sounds like this kind of activity might not be right for you, which is totally ok! :)