I don’t want to have a public debate on the specifics of this case, but I think it’s useful for posterity to note the following:

 
1. The organizing team was willing to pay for rental car transportation if more than one person wanted to go.
2. We did not have reason to believe this was the case in the run-up to the retreat. 
3.  Communication with university groups was broadly not as good as it could have been, and this is something we will look to improve on for future retreats.

Sorry, I probably should’ve included this in the post. The groups were UChicago, Purdue, UIUC, Wisconsin, WashU, Northwestern, amd Indiana. There was also a student from UC Berkeley and a student from Yale.

My understanding is that they were trying to sell in a hurry, and the number of buyers for properties like these is very small. Ironically, if they weren’t so desperate to rid themselves of the negative PR around having spent lots of money on a “castle”, they could have saved a great deal of money by waiting to sell it.

Edit: The last sentence is missing some qualifiers, but I think the broader point about PR skittishness and impatience leading to negative outcomes is correct, even if the monetary loss caused by this in particular is uncertain or even zero. 

I may just be dense, but can you describe what this would look like in more detail? The bar chart by default is giving totals by year, but I suspect you have something else in mind.

While I like the potential incentive alignment, I suspect finder’s fees are unworkable. It’s much easier to promise impartiality and fairness in a single game as opposed to an iterated one, and I suspect participants relying on the fees for income would become very sensitive to the nuances of previous decisions rather than the ultimate value of their critiques.

Ultimately, I don’t think there are many shortcuts in changing the philosophy of a movement. If something is worth challenging, than people strongly believe it and there will have to be a process of contested diffusion from the outside in. You can encourage this in individual cases, but systemizing it seems difficult.

Without a strongly supportive faculty member, I feel like you would struggle to make a group last longer than 2 years, since the succession and turnover dynamics of uni groups would be amplified. 

Could still be worthwhile even with the lack of sustainability.

The issue should now be fixed, thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Thanks for the interest in contributing! Right now, I can’t think of many features that would be both clearly useful and easily maintained, so I would welcome any thoughts you have there. 

As a university organizer at a very STEM focused state school, I suspect that students getting liberal arts degrees are more easily convinced to pursue a career in direct work. If this is the case, it could be because direct work compares more favorably with the other career options of those with liberal arts degrees, or because the clearer career outcomes of STEM majors create more path dependence and friction when they consider switching careers. This is potentially another thing to keep in mind when trying to compare the successes of EA uni groups.

Thank you for the feedback, this should now be fixed.