quotes: the ask template, so sending one takes five minutes

data/curated/quotes/ASK_TEMPLATE.md

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+# Asking for permission
+
+The sourcing research found that for LessWrong, the Alignment Forum, pre-2022
+EA Forum posts, most personal blogs, books and podcasts, **there is no licence
+and asking is the only lawful route**. It also found that asking well is the
+single cheapest form of risk reduction available, and it costs one email.
+
+This file exists so sending one takes five minutes rather than an hour.
+
+## What every ask must contain, and why
+
+Drawn from the 2026-08-30 sourcing brief. Each item is here because leaving it
+out is a known failure.
+
+1. **Who is asking and what the project is**, in one line.
+2. **The tone of the thing.** They are consenting to a CONTEXT, not to a reuse.
+   A dark and often funny game is a different proposition from a documentary,
+   and saying so plainly is the difference between consent and a surprise.
+3. **The exact quote, verbatim, as it would appear.** Never paraphrased.
+4. **Where it appears, described concretely.** "On the screen shown when a
+   player's run ends" is the fact that matters, and burying it is how people
+   end up feeling misled by a technically accurate request.
+5. **How they will be credited**, and an offer to change it.
+6. **An easy no.** Explicitly: no reason needed, no awkwardness.
+7. **What they can ask for later**: correction, re-attribution, anonymity, a
+   note that their views have changed, or withdrawal.
+8. **What happens by default.** No reply means NO USE. Never "if I don't hear
+   back I'll assume it's fine."
+
+## The template
+
+> Subject: Permission to quote you in a game about AI safety
+>
+> Hi [NAME],
+>
+> I'm Pip Foweraker. I'm building p(Doom)1, a free and source-available game
+> about running an AI safety organisation: you manage researchers, money and
+> attention, and you usually lose. It is not finished.
+>
+> When a player's run ends, I'd like to show a short real quote about why this
+> problem is genuinely hard, the way Call of Duty puts a line about the
+> difficulty of war on its death screen. The point is to tell someone who has
+> just lost that this is hard for everyone who has ever tried it, and that
+> trying again is the reasonable thing to do. Most players will not already be
+> convinced the problem is difficult. That is who the quotes are for.
+>
+> I would like to use this, of yours:
+>
+> > [EXACT QUOTE]
+>
+> From [TITLE], [DATE]: [URL]
+>
+> It would appear on that end-of-run screen, credited as "[CREDIT LINE]", with
+> the source shown next to it so a player can go and read the whole thing.
+>
+> **Please feel free to say no.** You do not need a reason and it will not be
+> awkward. If you would rather I used a different passage, or credited you
+> differently, or used initials or no name at all, any of those are fine.
+>
+> If you do say yes, you can change your mind at any point afterwards. You can
+> ask for a correction, a different attribution, a note that your views have
+> changed, or removal altogether, and it comes out in the next build. There is
+> a public record of every quote and its status here, including this one:
+> https://github.com/PipFoweraker/pdoom-data/tree/main/data/curated/quotes
+>
+> If I don't hear back, I won't use it.
+>
+> Thanks either way, and thanks for writing the thing in the first place.
+>
+> Pip
+
+## Notes on particular asks
+
+**Two permissions, not one.** Quotes from 80,000 Hours transcripts need both
+the speaker and 80,000 Hours, whose terms are explicitly restrictive. That
+covers the Stuart Russell and Chris Olah candidates. Ask the speaker first: a
+yes from them makes the second ask a formality.
+
+**Co-authored.** The two Embedded Agency quotes are Scott Garrabrant AND Abram
+Demski. Both must be asked, and it is one email each rather than one between
+them.
+
+**Ask about several at once.** The list is grouped by author for this reason.
+Karnofsky, Cotra, Ngo, Yudkowsky and Garrabrant each have two or three
+candidates, and asking about all of them in one message is less work for them
+than two messages a fortnight apart.
+
+**A warm introduction still needs an easy no.** Where an ask arrives through a
+mutual acquaintance it carries social weight a cold email does not, so the
+line about no being fine matters more rather than less.
+
+## When a reply arrives
+
+Set `permission.basis` to `granted` and fill in `granted_by`, `granted_at`,
+`granted_via` and `context_shown_to_author`. That last one is the paragraph
+describing the end-of-run screen; the gate refuses a grant without it, because
+a yes given without being told where it goes is not a yes for that place.
+
+On a no, set `basis` to `refused` and record the reason. The row stays in the
+file permanently so that nobody who never saw the refusal can reinstate it.
+
+Then capture an archive snapshot of the source, add a placement, and it will
+project into the served file on the next build.