Online Team
About
The Online Team at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is responsible for the digital platforms that underpin the effective altruism community's intellectual life. Its flagship product is the EA Forum (forum.effectivealtruism.org), an online discussion platform launched in 2018 that serves as the central hub for EA-related research, debate, community updates, and coordination. The team also manages effectivealtruism.org, the main gateway website for the EA movement, as well as the EA Newsletter and EA Forum Digest (published weekly on Substack), which curate highlights from Forum discussions. In 2025, the team took over the EA Opportunities Board, a job and volunteering listing platform. The EA Forum is built on the ForumMagnum codebase, an open-source platform shared with LessWrong. Most core development is done by the LessWrong team, with the CEA Online Team porting changes and building Forum-specific features. The Forum uses a karma-based system for content curation, with relatively light-touch moderation focused on post categorization and user approval rather than heavy enforcement. The Online Team sits within CEA, which was founded in 2012 by William MacAskill and Toby Ord at the University of Oxford. CEA was historically a project of Effective Ventures but began spinning out as an independent organization in January 2024, completing the spinout and merging with EA Funds in July 2025. CEA is headquartered at Trajan House in Oxford, UK. As of early 2026, the Online Team consists of four staff members: Sarah Cheng (EA Forum Project Lead), Toby Tremlett (Content Strategist), Agnes Stenlund (Senior Product Designer), and Ollie Etherington (Senior Software Engineer). The broader Online Team has approximately 6 FTE, with about 2.5 FTE dedicated specifically to the EA Forum. Notable past team members include JP Addison, who built and maintained the Forum for seven years before departing, and Aaron Gertler, who led content operations. In early 2025, under Sarah Cheng's leadership, the team shifted its strategic focus from primarily technical development toward community building, emphasizing author outreach, writing workshops, and cross-platform content promotion. The team also offers software development consulting services to external EA-aligned organizations.
Theory of Change
The Online Team's theory of change centers on facilitating information flow and high-quality discourse within the effective altruism community. By providing well-maintained platforms for research discussion, strategy coordination, and knowledge sharing, the team enables the EA community to identify the most impactful interventions for pressing global problems, including existential risks from AI. The EA Forum serves as a critical venue where AI safety researchers, grantmakers, and community members publish analyses, debate priorities, coordinate funding, and refine strategies. Better information flow leads to better-informed decisions about resource allocation, career choices, and research priorities, ultimately improving the quality and quantity of work directed at reducing existential risk.
Details
- Start Date
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- End Date
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- Expected Duration
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- Funding Raised to Date
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- Last Updated
- Apr 3, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC
- Created
- Apr 3, 2026, 2:03 AM UTC