Closed:
- Admissions, like Harvard. Gatekeeping, like journals. Selectivity is the name, like Nobel Prizes
- Most events, private gatherings, parties
- EAG. Metaculus. EA Funds.
- Benefits: you can create a reputation or brand for quality, which has virtuous cycles of begetting more quality.
- Problems with closed: running admissions is expensive. you may miss out on good people, because they don't apply or you fail to identify them. The winners have goodhearted on this.
Open:
- Everyone can participate. Church. Boy Scouts. Wikipedia.
- Anyone can enter tournaments like marathons.
- Taco Tuesday, the park, zombie tag
- Manifest. Manifold. Manifund.
- Benefits: you can farm, be agnostic about which approachrd are best, let everything grow and then hope the winners carry the batch. Cf black swan farming
- Problems with open settings: dilution of quality, misallocation of scarce resources, tyranny of doocracy (cf HOA)