Thanks for the comment, Hugh.

Yes, we think both of those wordings would have been acceptable. Ideally, though, the organization would also clarify what it's actually doing to try to reform pesticide use—whether that's creating content, conducting research, or something else.

Thanks Jason. We thought it was clear from context as well, but have edited the post to ensure that no one could construe it any other way. We are indeed working on volunteer labor and on a tight budget. Your assessment of our current stage and reason for our desire for confidentiality is accurate. 

"Pending case" does seem to have a specific legal meaning. I am not a lawyer and wouldn't know whether there is an additional colloquial meaning (though when asked in those terms, Claude Sonnet 4 agrees that there is). Therefore I disagree that it was "sufficiently clear" -- I would say it was below a sufficient standard of clarity.^[1] I don't think the reader can be expected to infer that a legal term was being used differently from the fact it was a disclosed to be a newly-formed volunteer team. I do think readers would have expected an organisation's formal statement to be using the legal, more formal, meaning, and indeed I think many non-lawyer readers of this forum would not be aware that there is any other meaning. 

1. ^{^}

   (Though I don't get the impression this was deliberate, whereas I get the sense Vetted Causes does.)

SPI stated: "Much of our current efforts involve […] litigation, which we keep confidential for operational reasons - sharing details publicly would compromise pending cases."^[1]

We do not think SPI's statement makes it clear that SPI has not litigated any cases, and only has  "potential litigation in development and preparation."^[2]

Their response disclosed that they were running on volunteer labor with a shoestring budget. 

Filing cases is often free for volunteer-run charities due to fee waivers.

Moreover, the reference to a desire for confidentiality strongly implies that the referenced cases were at the pre-filing stage of the litigation process. Civil actions are almost always a matter of public record, and the case-initiating documents

There is often a lot of information that you'd still want to keep confidential even if the lawsuit you've filed can be found with a docket number. Some of this confidentiality is even legally required. 

In practice, it is also much less likely that people would find your cases if you don't mention them to anyone (i.e. confidentiality). 

1. ^{^}

   https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/KuwEsBTGXSSxrkh6m/society-for-the-protection-of-insects-review?commentId=MicynucEovxbejNeL

2. ^{^}

   https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/sk9btzq9MjivvYtXG/spi-the-litigators-that-have-never-litigated-a-case?commentId=TiyoBgmn4fGRaHH8S

Re: Litigation: It sounds like your read of "much of our current efforts involve policy advocacy and litigation, which we keep confidential" was something akin to "we are actively engaged in one or more already-filed lawsuits," which is not how it was intended. What we meant was that litigation as a general strategy is one of our current efforts (as opposed to some other strategy, for example), and that confidentiality is important to us in that strategy. At this stage, this practically means things like researching issues and causes of action, searching for plaintiffs,  consulting with potential witnesses, and other tasks performed in preparation for litigation. With that said, in the interest of disambiguation, we will edit the original post for clarity and note how it has been edited. 

Thank you for fixing it.

Re: Confidentiality: As for why confidentiality is important, this is because opposition could take more effective countermeasures to lower the effectiveness of our interventions if they knew exactly what we were doing or preparing to do.

We’ve openly stated that in many circumstances, confidentiality is appropriate or even necessary. If you’re preparing for a lawsuit, we don’t object to keeping specific legal strategies or related information confidential. Our concern has never been about the existence of confidentiality—it’s about how confidentiality was used rhetorically to deflect criticism, and to suggest more progress and impact than the facts supported. 

You asked us not to mention that SPI's work is confidential, claiming it “could raise suspicion from industry.” This reason doesn’t make sense. Simply knowing SPI has some form of confidential work does not provide any meaningful information; everyone does work that could be self-labeled as confidential. Industry does not care about a charity that filed zero lawsuits, litigated zero cases, and operated with $0 in expenditures in their most recent fiscal year.

Further, there is no way for any opposition to develop “more effective countermeasures” in reaction to simply knowing SPI has some form of work that’s been self-labeled as confidential. 

Re: Pending cases: As others have noted in this thread, there are multiple reasonable interpretations of the phrase "pending cases." We thought it understandable from the context of the post, but again, to be as clear as possible, we will edit the original post and note how it has been edited. 

When you say: "Much of our current efforts involve […] litigation, which we keep confidential for operational reasons - sharing details publicly would compromise pending cases." 

there’s a good chance many people will reasonably interpret that to mean:

1. You’ve actually done litigation, and
2. You have legal cases that are currently pending.

Since neither of those things is true, the statement was materially misleading.

Invoking confidentiality here discouraged additional inquiry, and furthered the false impression that SPI was engaged in sensitive, ongoing litigation, despite no cases having been filed.

Re: Policy advocacy: The types of policy advocacy actions we engage in range from organizational outreach, public outreach, and legislator/regulator outreach. These are ongoing initiatives and not yet fully realized outcomes. We do not think that having the words "Reform Pesticide Use" on our website next to our other initiatives implies that we have already finished the initiative.

Above is an image from SPI's website. 

“We try to reform pesticide use” and “We do reform pesticide use” are two completely different claims—just like saying “We try to discover aliens” versus “We do discover aliens.”

You can’t honestly claim to reform pesticide use until pesticide use is actually changing as a result of your work.