hexbear

Meta posting opens the door to shame and ridicule. I've already seen this happen by browsing the modlog a few times - it just got handled and i think that it's absolutely good it was handled. i think there's nothing to really say about MA that can't be discussed as issues arise, privately. For better or worse, there are people who enjoy wrecking stuff like it. Issues with specific users can be handled by mods and admins - a lot of what can be said about it would be to curtail or limit the function of MA - the additional burden would be suppressive of use.

Please don't give any room to the sorts who want to metapost about mutual aid - I'm sure some folks mean well, but it's just going to enable drama that doesn't need exist and will impede function

I think the meta posts should be removed. I've only seen people be harassing doing it and the people that need help in m_a (as I am and have been) don't appreciate being talked down to or given unsolicited advice during a bad period of their lives.

I think it is important to center people who use it; their opinions to me are more relevant in this situation than my own.

As a trans refugee living in a camp, I rely on communities like this to survive emotionally and materially. When I post for help, I’m not just fighting poverty, I’m fighting invisibility.

Removing meta posts that question or critique mutual aid requests is vital. Every time someone casts doubt or makes "meta" judgments, it makes people like me feel small, like we have to prove our pain or our worth.

This space should be about solidarity, not suspicion. Please protect it, so people like me can ask for help with dignity without shame or fear.

I feel like allowing meta posts is going to seed witch hunts and struggle sessions with real monetary stakes which feels gross. The post you're responding to is already fairly obviously some offline drama between a constellation of users. If the mods/admins want to take charge of "protecting the good people of mutual_aid" and allow people to report scammers, I think that's your guys prerogative, and whatever level of transparency you want to give to that is fine.

In general it's incredibly difficult to judge these kinds of things in an online anonymous board, and it would not be our place to moralize who is deserving of aid based on what will inevitably be internecine drama. Allowing for even the hint of purity testing is going to endanger the long term ability for people to access aid on the site, and create an even more unfair advantage for people who are known quantities which they could then also quite easily exploit.

In short, because we can't know, we shouldn't care and it's not our place to. Caveat emptor.

The forum structure of /c/mutual_aid means it functions like a charity market. All the issues we have were already addressed by sites like GoFundMe. Either force users to use sites like GoFundMe or start writing their systems into hexbear's codebase.

We can self crit all we want over it but in the end its a software issue.

It doesn't really feel like the mutual aid is very mutual. And alot of the people posting consistently on mutual aid don't really seem to post or interact outside of the comm. I don't really know too much about the situation but that's just my two cents. Not sure if the comm is accomplishing what it set out to do.

I used to give pretty regularly but ended up blocking the comm once folks started doing rolling fundraisers for multiple hundreds per month. Just rubbed me the wrong way. There's not a soul on this site who couldn't use an extra few hundred for bills per month. I was more interested in helping folks out who were experiencing acute emergencies.

I think meta posts being allowed is good. There should be a way to make suggestions and such and meta posts allow that

I think there should be a one post a day rule. I've personally needed help and never posted because the current meta is to drown each other out. It makes an already stressful thing to do feel adversarial, and I don't want to be pushing other people down.

As for if there's people scamming? Of course there are this is the internet. Not much to be done about that without also potentially harming someone in need.

You know what sucks is that for people complaining about scams or people soliciting for donations for food and then using it for drugs - like, hexbear anonymous donations aren't as substitute for an org in that city or a food bank. We could at best cover a chunk of or entirerty of someone's rent once or, ironically, pay for someone's drugs a few times (why not, I like my own drugs like coffee and cigarettes and shit so why shouldn't someone struggling with cash get them) or maybe help with groceries a couple times. But we could never replace a food bank or a shelter or training programs or whatever, because we're an anonymous forum of mostly hard up for cash leftists.

There's also not a lot of mutual aid in the mutual aid comm - the amount of mutuality depending on someone needing short term financial help and then getting their feet unser later. Theres aid in the mutual aid comm, the amount which notwithstanding, but how can someone asking for food every day actually do the mutual part of mutual aid on an online anonymous forum? There's stuff they could actually do in person where they live but how would we direct that or have anything to do with that? Some of the stories people have also suggest they actually should stop trying to help the people around them and focus on their own survival - like maybe you can't have a roommate living with you in your car cause it's another mouth to feed. Or maybe you need to check in to an inpatient medical program if youre actually risking DKA and hypoglycemic events as often as the posts go up. There was one person who I recall in a, self disclosed, manic episode gave away a lot of their money to an ex or whatever and now couldn't afford rent. Like, whatever the circumstances, you're not in a position to be trying to help other people with money yet and so there's not really a mutual element.

An actual mutual aid network isn't just charity, like we'd ideally be organizing so that some frequent posters would be hooked into real programs that meet their actual needs - except we're anonymous too lol. Like it's a mess.

Here's a dumb but honest question: what even is mutual aid, and how is it different from charity? Cause rn it looks like we are running a very disorganized charity for both regular community contributors, as well as people who use this site almost exclusively for the comm. Is the difference that the money goes straight to the recipient without any accountability or organization or records? Just wondering how this system is supposed to work.

If someone wants to donate and not publicize on their account, they could report the post with a message saying "I've DMd this user", which goes right to the mods and admins, who could create a comment on their behalf "A user has sent you a DM". Just something that came to mind just now. Obviously, that puts mods in the loop, which is more work, so take that into account. This obviously works best on the web interface, some apps have canned report options, not sure if all of them have a freeform box to enter text into.

i think maybe it would help if people knew when donation goals were being met. like if we had a basic verification system that kind of worked on the honor system it might help. something like this:

user posts request with amount,
donator comments something like "DM Sent",
user updates after amount is received

i can think of a few issues so far:

1. some people lurk/donate without posting
2. there may be opsec issues we could fix by encouraging donator alts
3. it may deincentivize people from donating to those who aren't using the system

i'd like some input on how to fix the issues because i do think we can fix the transparency issues and make people more confident donating

Posts similar to the one that prob. initiated this discussion shouldn't be allowed on that comm. Such claims can't really be verified either way and just lead to drama.

And more of an observation: Use of the comm was pretty rare for a long time, but it's increased dramatically as time has gone on. I think hexbears with both the desire and means to donate was always a pretty small group due to the site's similarly small size, and said group's limited funds are increasingly stretched across both more requests and the rising cost of living in general, leading to a higher chance of some requests going partially or wholly unfulfilled. I suppose I'm saying this to let those seeking help know that, if that happens to them, it's not necessarily a lack of caring, there's just unfortunately only so much money to to go around and they had unlucky timing. It's no one's fault, just a reality of capitalism sadly.