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Yvain comments on "A good volunteer is hard to find" - Less Wrong
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Another possibility is that people really don't like the idea of having to do a 2 to 4 hour deliberately useless test assignment.
The characterization of the test assignment as deliberately useless strikes me as unfair; formatting the lists of sources is useful even if marginally so.
I presume that the reason they put this program in place and began to keep statistics is that they perceived a significant issue with volunteers never completing assignments. Yes it would be nice if we had more data on that, but without that data it would be really hard to tease out the significance of this marginal difference.
Volunteers who fail to complete real assignments can be very disruptive to an organization and a drain on its other resources who must put in time on training, review and various forms of hand-holding. So, it is probably not a bad idea for Givewell to do this. Naturally volunteers do not want to spend several hours on a make-work assignment but if they are truly interested in benefiting this particular organization then they should be able to see the larger picture that makes it necessary.
It's a tempting hypothesis, but I've heard enough complaints about volunteers from organizations that don't do that sort of test that I don't think the test is a crucial factor.
Identifying conscientious people seems to be a hard problem. Do you have suggestions about how it can be done?
I posted to this thread basically to add my complaint. I am involved with a not-for-profit and there is a huge problem with people who enthusiastically volunteer but end up doing little or nothing of value for the organization.
So yeah, I don't think it's that people find opportunities elsewhere or that people resent make-work.
Here's a thought experiment: Suppose that Givewell continues to test volunteers, but instead of something boring and tedious, the "test" is something fun and interesting. But still it is admittedly make-work. I predict that the percentage of applicants who complete the test will rise dramatically.