This year, I’m holding a second Draft Amnesty Week (October 13-19), a week for publishing un-finished, below-standard, uncertain, or long-languishing posts.

You can read the Draft Amnesty posts from March, here.

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:

PS- In the (sometimes lazy, but ultimately functional) spirit of Draft Amnesty, much of this post is adapted from the last Draft Amnesty announcement. 

Draft Amnesty Timeline

Next week, September 29 - October 5: Get ideas 💡

During next week, to help people get ideas for draft amnesty posts, there will be two threads pinned on the Frontpage, for people to write about:

• The posts they would like someone to write 

• The posts they are thinking about writing themselves

You can use these posts to get ideas, encouragement, or accountability. 

October 6 - 12: Get drafting 📝

Draft Amnesty is about posting drafts you have sitting around. It's also about drafting ideas you've had for a while but don't have the time or inclination to properly turn into posts. 

If you want some people to draft with (during this week or whenever), I'd recommend writing a quick take, and organising to meet people in EA Gather town at a particular time. I may also set up a thread for Forum users to organise Gather co-writing sessions, if there is enough interest. 

I'll be at EAG NYC at the end of the week. If I see you, you'd best believe I'll be asking you for drafts. 

October 13- 19: Get posting 🎉

Draft Amnesty begins... 

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'.

Why run another one?

The Draft Amnesty we ran early this year garnered 52 posts, including 14 at or above 50 karma. That makes it a stand-out week for good Forum content (but don’t let that stop you from posting something you aren’t sure is good - many of the top posters felt the same). 

I’m interested whether the Forum audience could use a second Draft Amnesty Week. Will we get a similar number of posts?

How Draft Amnesty Works

During Draft Amnesty Week, anyone can publish a post, as draft-y or polished as you like, tagged Draft Amnesty Week (2025) (We'll use the same tag as March's event). 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 which allows you to contextualise your post for the readers^[1]. 

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, last year 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 (2025) 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. 

1. ^{^}

   This is a Draft Amnesty Week draft. It may not be polished, up to my usual standards, fully thought through, or fully fact-checked.

   Commenting and feedback guidelines:  Keep one and delete the rest (or write your own): I'm posting this to get it out there. I'd love to see comments that take the ideas forward, but criticism of my argument won't be as useful at this time. This draft lacks the polish of a full post, but the content is almost there. The kind of constructive feedback you would normally put on a Forum post is very welcome. This is a Forum post that I wouldn't have posted without the nudge of Draft Amnesty Week. Fire away! (But be nice, as usual)