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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: You should write on the EA Forum, published by Lizka on April 29, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. TLDR: You can do many things on the EA Forum. Writing is one of them, and I think you should do it. (Note: this is the first of the "How to use the Forum" sequence, which is replacing the original "How to use the Forum" post.) Here’s an overview of things that you can do on the Forum: Write stuff! Engage with things other people wrote Read! (A lot) Subscribe to the Forum Digest Express appreciation Follow users, topics, and specific posts Join the community Write a Forum bio Message and connect with other users Let’s talk about #1. Outline Don’t be intimidated Why should you post? What should you post? Discussions & writing that will help us do the most good Don’t post spam, info hazards, personal tirades, stuff you know is false Resources Why should you post? Below are some reasons for posting. You can: Help — have a direct impact through your writing. This can happen if you clarify a problem, direct people’s attention to important topics, support others’ efforts to do good, and the like. Learn and skill up. If you’d like to test your fit for research or communications (or improve skills you already have), writing on the Forum and getting feedback is a great way to develop yourself. Writing out your thinking on the Forum can also help you identify mistakes or direct you to valuable resources, perspectives, and people to talk to about your topic of choice. Get noticed You might be thinking about topics of great interest to other people, and they might reach out to you and see if you’d like to get involved in their work. Also, if you’re considering working in research, communications, or strategy positions in the future, having some thoughtful Forum posts can help demonstrate your fit. Connect with people If you’ve been thinking about something or working on a project, and you post about it, people interested in similar things can identify you and reach out to collaborate, share resources, or otherwise connect. Feel rewarded and appreciated Say you’ve been working on something for a while. If you share it, it can be appreciated. Someone might find it useful and tell you, or maybe you’ll just get some upvotes — but that’s still a signal that can be rewarding! There are also downsides to posting. I think the main one is the cost of time; it will probably take up some of your time to write out your thoughts, and you could use this time in a different way. Another real cost might be incurred if you find the Forum intimidating or otherwise unpleasant to interact with. (I had a lot of trouble posting my first post, for instance, and definitely worried a lot about whether people would hate it. I now think people shouldn’t worry so much — the worst thing that will happen is probably that your post will go down the Frontpage and not get tons of engagement — but that doesn’t change the fact that people do worry, and that’s truly unpleasant.) You can see a longer discussion of the upsides and downsides to posting on the Forum here. Convinced that you should post? ➡️ New post Don’t be intimidated You’re allowed to post (you don’t need permission from anyone or any special powers to publish a post on the Forum) The Forum exists for you— for anyone trying to do good as well as they can. It’s not for “employees of EA organizations™”, researchers at specific institutes, or people with the official stamp of approval. It’s for you. If you’re posting your first post, it won’t show up on the Frontpage straight away; as an anti-spam measure, one of the Forum's moderators will check the first post or comment from each new user before automatically approving their future posts and comments. But it will get approved unless it’s spam or clearly violates some community norms. (If more than 2...