What happened to the "Women and Effective Altruism" post?

Thanks for explaining your thought process. I agree with the first half. But I'll respectfully push back on the rest. Please bear with me as this may be hard to hear. But I also hope it is roundabout nice to hear, and hope it clears the air. 

1. Was your energy not appreciated?
Yes it's fair to leave spaces where you aren't appreciated. But many people in that thread did take the concerns seriously and give you a warm reception. Catherine and Julia both offered to speak to you. As did Rocky. The comments were also full of people saying things like "I don't want to negate your experiences" or "I'm glad this post was written". From what I remember, kind and concerned comments were finding their way to the top, and your post was even netting more upvotes by day too. 

Additionally, I say this as someone who was hesitant about your post myself (I asked for further details on the original post), any hesitance about the piece or even down-votes didn't mean that I or others didn't want to take your concerns seriously, nor that we didn't already have our own concerns about women in EA. We just needed a little help to make sense of the whole post, and possibly didn't agree with the relevance of many of your closing suggestions or the way polyamory was brought into it.

And regarding any brutish comments, I think if you'd allowed time, they would have been heavily down-voted (call me naive but I've got faith in the community like that). I've gotten hate online when I say something controversial too, some of which still stands out in my mind years later. But it doesn't negate the good responses I also received, which usually take time and roll in as reactions to the bad ones. Bad comments don't mean one should pack up, and then tell other people who weren't there that their "energy was not appreciated" or their post was "heavily down-voted". I hate to be the one to say it to you, but I think it needs to be said eventually... based on what I saw and know, I don't think that wording and any similar wording you've used elsewhere is honest.

2. Did the post"lead to no action"? 
Firstly, you can't have determined in a few days (by the time you deleted the post) that no one was going to act. Most of us would already have had a lot on our plate so we'd need time to mull it over, and think what we could do. 

Personally, I'm now moving forward with a project which I can thank you for inspiring. But more importantly, the Community Health Team told me they've been working on a similar project, which I assume your post inspired too, so things were in fact going to be addressed. Also, even if no formal EA-wide action were ever taken, I'd bet you that multiple EA communities and orgs improved or are working on improving their processes after reading your post (and the comments as by EA NYC). Community builders talk (as you know) so if I had to bet, I'd bet changes would have reached the EA Forum (for grassroots implementation) or the CEA Groups Team (for top-down implementation) within a few months of now.

(Sheepishly): Personally, I would have taken action sooner except... I went back to the post soon after to message you something like "Hey, I want to move forward with a project about this, do you want to share more details to help the process?" but on seeing the deleted post, I assumed I had been blocked for requesting more details on the post. Should I have looked harder? YES, OMG YES. However I had remembered it sounding like you were pretty done and wish to be hands-off by the end of that post anyway. I unfortunately then kinda shrugged and did decide to delay taking action because I had another EA project that I knew would end by February. 

Why am I telling my own dumb story? Well, I think it's instructive of something bigger. Although it was surely not your intention, by deleting the post from the forum, you made it that much harder:

• for someone to tell you "thanks for your post"
• for you to have your mind changed about the community's reception, if warranted (I think you'd at least have realized it was warranted to have a more nuanced view)
• for someone to tell you about actions they'd taken or were planning to take in response to your post.
• For someone to believe you'd treat alternative perspectives in good faith--for poly people in particular it started to look likely you might use disagreement as proof of toxicity. If so, this would at best waste time, so people who want to take action try to avoid risky exchanges which might bog them down.
• for someone to believe you'd be a reliable collaborator to reach out to, or that you still wanted to be a collaborator at all

So I don't know that you could have expected to know of action you inspired by the time you deleted the post, or to have heard of actions you did inspire after deleting it.

3. How I think EAs fucked up and made it easy for you and others to conclude inaction:
Okay, it takes time to take action. But as for posting public updates about intentions to take action, yeah I think I and the broader EA community may have dropped the ball there. Obviously in retrospect, to the extent EA org leaders and community builders (I'm the latter) did not prioritize clarifying that we cared and were taking action, these were poor choices. Feelings of resentment, confusion, and concern were validly building for EAs. 

I have some compassion for why this ball was probably dropped: (1) that poly people (like me) would find public discussions very aversive. Why open the floor for anti-poly talk, when you can just put your nose to grindstone and do something, off a public forum? (2) Distant community builders and org leaders might not see it as necessary to share plans (maybe in certain Slacks, but not the Forum). Perhaps they would share results some months later (it takes time to test protocols and stuff), but not plans. (3) Even if it might seem right to do, posting plans and then responding to discussion about those plans is really labor intensive with nebulous reward (lame that this plays into it, but I think true)

But regardless, it's obvious mistakes were made about transparency, and there's a slice of humble pie with many people's names on it, definitely mine.

But Hey I think it's okay:
I hope it is now obvious that the responses you got and some period of relative silence following didn't mean the community didn't care or appreciate the post. It didn't mean you had no effect! We don't always get to see the exact effect we have, but your post made waves.  Sometimes you just gotta trust your ripples are keeping on, you know? I know that's a cringe metaphor, but I hope it's easier to trust now.

I only hope that next time you have an important or controversial point, you don't paint a community with a broad brush or forcibly stop the conversation too early (taking a break makes sense though). I say this regardless of whether you owe EA anything. But EA and, way more importantly, the world still needs new ideas, and I think good ideas have a better chance at being adopted if people are more patient or something.

FWIW I know firsthand how extremely frustrating discussing gender and harrassment in EA and the world can be. Like, honestly crazy-making in my experience, especially when that discussion goes on for days or weeks. Let alone being at the center of it! I hope most others who dropped in and out of the discussions realize how hard it is to relate to your position and that perhaps most of us would be at our last straw.

Therefore, although I've gone on about both, I don't hold anything against you for deleting the post or for misportraying the community response since, and I'd try to sway others from holding either against you as well (if necessary). This is one reason I'm replying publicly. So people know these sentiments have been said and the community can move forward.  FWIW I think people who would like to help solve gender issues in EA (including me) would still be happy for your feedback. 

Anyway, good luck with the AI capabilities T.T 
Predictable Pedantic Note: Please don't get so single-minded about it that you end up contributing to extinction (including yours) o.o