UPDATED! Mutual_Aid discussion post

After discussing this with the people most often using the mutual aid community and feedback here we will be making a single change.

Meta posts will no longer be permitted in !mutual_aid@hexbear.net critical meta posts must not be about specific users and posted in !feedback@hexbear.net at risk of removal.

We will change the mutual aid sidebar to remove the clause permitting meta posts, we will also ask that users post once a day so that everyone's post's can be seen but this is not a hard rule as it is pretty clear that removing posts is a last resort in that community. This joins the other community recommendations that users include currency, how much is needed, updating when a user has received funds, or updating/locking the post when the need has been met.

Wanted to update what the considered changes to the community are in summary: users can post 3 times a week, asks no more than 100$ each post display name is changed to "emergency aid" users communicate if they are open to non monetary resources (local aid groups, etc.) user requests aid, amount requested in title using [$0/$x] format users donate and report the post with the amount donated, mods note it or report it with a message indicating they donated so a mod can comment user updates title with amount received and the thread is locked when the goal is met meta posts are no longer permitted We will do a follow up post where voting on keeping the community as is or changing it will occur. If you want to propose changes to this summary please answer in a comment below this one. do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested? do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts? you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating? do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid? do you think we should allow meta posts?

I said this in our DM, so I'll say it publicly. I used to be a step parent. One day, my ex's sister got arrested and I became a parent to an extra kid over night. We needed hundreds of dollars to make him comfortable, and just to keep him out of state custody (drug tests, handling old traffic tickets, ect.). We got that money mostly from here. Between family and Hexbear, we got an extra $500 that week and we used every cent. Just the drug tests for the courts were $60 a person. Yes, there were resources for foster parents that we got access to later on, but those took months to access. We got his Christmas with those, and we were hit with this the day before Halloween. There's no reason to arbitrarily cap how much people can need/give, that's between the people who give and receive.
I agree with everything except limiting the amount requested. That seems arbitrary and would make the comm useless to people who need more than $100 (or whatever limit we would set), as emergencies often are more costly than that especially in the current economy. Imo the other requested changes would greatly improve the experience for both requestors and donators without setting a hard cap on how much someone can ask for.
- This
- I think the theory is that a limit to how much each person could ask for allows for more people to use the comms for help, as most donators will have a limited amount to give each week. I agree it's just too rigid in practice to be a useful change though, especially since the admins couldn't give exceptions without effectively endorsing the fundraiser, which they understandably don't want to do.
A posting limit might be okay but I don’t think we should limit amount asked.
Tracking would be nice
No need to change the name, it’s just semantics at that point.
No meta posts, if users have actual proof of scamming, they should submit it to the mods and admins.
This all seems like it's going to make it so difficult. I was first directed to mutual aid by someone I met on a suicide pact forum. I was on there asking for someone to help me commit suicide because I was so desperate due to my financial situation. Benefits stopped, overdraft maxxed out, rent debt racking up, no money, just a huge pile of debt. With no money for food I'd been trying to use the food bank, but it was awful. To try and prevent people using it if they don't need it, they have strict rules in place. The main one is that you have to be referred there from someone like your GP or citizens advice, someone who can vouch for you that you really are in need. This means needing a GP or citizens advice appointment, even if it's just a phone appointment to explain and prove your circumstances, it could be a really long wait for the appointment or phone call. Then needing to wait for the actual food bank appointment. The amount of food the food bank gives was never enough to last while trying to get referrals and appointments to go back again. I was hungry regularly. So much so that I was trying to get help to end my life and tried selling my prescription meds online as I had no other source of income. Someone on the suicide forum told me about mutual aid, that's how I came to be here. And while I do sometimes have to make multiple posts to get a response, it's still so much easier and quicker than the food bank. My worry is if you add these extra rules it is going to become as difficult to get help here as it was from the food bank. And for me, as well as many others, this is the last chance saloon. We have nowhere else to turn. Making it harder here could be the final straw for many people.
don't limit the amount requested
- we won't be, the users who post in mutual aid and those who comment or donate are overwhelmingly against it as well as most of the userbase at broad
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
I don't think this is very helpful, different people will have different financial situations, and if we are trying to focus more on emergency aid, some emergencies are much more costly than others. I think this will actively encourage "spamming" at the start of a week and the comm will get flooded with requests all at once, making it much easier for some to slip through the cracks.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
This one I agree with, especially with a focus on emergency aid, though I think the mods may have to make exceptions in very specific circumstances, someone having two massive disasters in one week is rare, but not unheard of. I doubt it will ever actually come up though.
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
I like this idea a lot. I would rather donations not be loud public displays, I don't feel comfortable donating in such a way, but just a simple tracking system will go a long way, while not actively spotlighting anyone, plus I think seeing locked posts that have had their goals met will be good for morale.
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?
I think since mutual aid is probably a bit too difficult to do over an online anonymous system like this, it is probably better phrased that way.
do you think we should allow meta posts?
I think a monthly meta thread could be good, one that enables people to ask for aid that isn't necessarily financial, more things like advice and support. It could also be a good way to "allow" meta discussion without it taking over the comm.
- I think a monthly meta thread could be good, one that enables people to ask for aid that isn't necessarily financial, more things like advice and support. It could also be a good way to "allow" meta discussion without it taking over the comm.
  I like this idea. A regular megathread of advice and resources would actually feel more like mutual aid than just charity.
seems like a lot of overcorrection that gets in the way of helping people who actually need.
Limiting the amount requested is a fucking awful idea
Here is my public position.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
No.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
No.
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
No.
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?
Put it to a vote.
do you think we should allow meta posts?
No, put it to a vote.
users communicate if they are open to non monetary resources (local aid groups, etc.)
Unnecessary. This already occurs when requested.
user requests aid, amount requested in title using [$0/$x] format
No. Add rule to ask to voluntarily do so if it fits the context of their needs.
user updates title with amount received and the thread is locked when the goal is met
No to a hard rule. Yes as a voluntary obligation to requestors as they are able to and no unless specifically requested.
users can post 3 times a week, asks no more than 100$ each post
I don’t like the idea of setting a limit on dollar amount. That would be a huge setback for users who are asking for help with things like rent, bills, and losing your house to an IDF terror attack.
As for limiting # of posts per week, I think the problem of visibility on that comm needs to be looked at: even before I ruined it for everyone, I noticed that donations would dry up the moment my post got too old and stopped being “hot,” even with a lot of bumps.
I’ll address the other stuff after I take a nap.
- because different users can set a different default post sort it is difficult to do anything on the back-end to increase post visibility. I don't think you ruined it for anyone i just think that right now so many people need help and the average person here may be more strained than before.
IMO as someone who frequents the mutual_aid community when I can, we should not be policing posters there with respect to how much they've received or how much they can ask for. A consequence of this being an anonymous online community is that there's no way to know whether someone is being honest, and that is something we should just accept. Others have said this, and I agree with it: if you want to know you're helping someone who needs it, join a local org.
Potentially a limit to the number of posts could be helpful. However, I understand why people desperate for help would make posts in a short period of time. I would leave that one to people in the comm who need help.
Meta posts calling out other users feels too much like a witch hunt and I believe it's unproductive (for the reasons mentioned in paragraph 1). I feel like mods should handle grievances like that if we choose to handle it at all.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
No, users' needs will often vary; limits like this will cause problems.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
This may make sense, but the Active sort definitely incentivizes posts every 6 to 8 hours instead, and I don't see an easy way around that, unfortunately. I defer to others' opinions on this one.
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
On the one hand this sounds like a decent system; on the other hand the potential for abuse does exist. But if people want to try it out, and mods are okay with doing their part, I'd be willing to participate.
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?
Not really, it kinda seems pedantic to me.
do you think we should allow meta posts?
Yes; otherwise there is no way to criticize bad actors, and I am of the opinion that the recent meta post, which I believe prompted this one, was valuable and helpful to the community.
- Not gonna go into specifics, but Sphere's opinion is definitely one of the more important opinions on this thread
Yes to all except the amount cap. The problem isn't so much the amounts requested but the frequency of those requests overshadowing other people who also need help. If someone really needs a large amount with a good justification, it would be a shame to limit the help we can give them.
This is my reply to the dm, which I'm also going to post here.
Are you happy with the community as it currently is?
No. It isn't very effective at getting aid.
users can post 3 times a week, asks no more than 100$ each post
3 times a week is too few and $100 ain't shit. If there's to be a money limit, it needs to be much higher.
display name is changed to "emergency aid"
No opinion.
users communicate if they are open to non monetary resources (local aid groups, etc.)
Good idea. Only if the user communicates it. No unsolicited offers, because 9 times out of 10 they probably won't help.
user requests aid, amount requested in title using [$0/$x] format
I usually do this anyway. I think it's a good idea.
users donate and report the post with the amount donated, mods note it or report it with a message indicating they donated so a mod can comment
Potentially good idea, but unless they provide receipts I don't think this would work out. What's to stop someone claiming to have donated to make others think the need is already met when it hasn't been?
user updates title with amount received and the thread is locked when the goal is met
Good idea.
meta posts are no longer permitted
Bad idea. There needs to be mechanisms for community discussion.
Just woke up, might have more thoughts later.
What is the thinking behind no more than $100 per post? What if someone is in an emergency that needs more than that, or the refugees who advertise their gofundmes? I think this rule would screw many desperate people over. How does this work with people who use other currencies?
Also I don't agree with having to request an amount in the title - I ask for food vouchers and will take whatever someone can give. I often have to make multiple posts before getting a response so i don't want to be limited by how much I can ask for or I'll end up with not enough to tide me over from last time while i wait for a response.
What are meta posts?
Why are all these changes wanted?
As far as keeping track, I've found (since i ask for food vouchers that can be donated anonymously) some people prefer to remain anonymous, so they probably wouldn't report anyway. Also very dangerous - for instance, I got trolled on lemmy by someone who kept saying (for weeks) they would send aid but didn't. He got banned. But people like him want to make life worse for people who need help. They would anonymously report to the mods that they had sent us money, when they actually hadn't.
Weekly limit on amount of posts - this would prevent people from getting the help they need. It took me about 4 posts to get the help I need this time. I had nowhere else to turn.
All in all I think these changes will remove the only lifeline left for some desperate people.
The only change I want to see is the ability to reply in-thread removed. I, and several other people here, have had people comment in our threads saying they're going to help, and then they don't help. Other people see their reply, think we've already been helped and then don't offer any help. It costs us help we would have had from other people.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
No
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
Yes, I think once a day or every other day is fine, multiple times a day is too much and I feel like it drowns out other requestors
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?
Yes, words mean things.
do you think we should allow meta posts?
No, if this means posts within the comm about issues like this. It seems to just cause a lot of tension and regardless of how I might feel about what goes on in this particular comm, the passive aggressiveness that has been prevalent on this site more recently feels terrible. I can't imagine how it must feel for the people who are being called out, either.
IF meta posts were to stay I think they shouod be strictly moderated and there would need to be ground rules for participation. The personal attacks are outta control
users can post 3 times a week, asks no more than 100$ each post --Imagine walking up to someone homeless and desperate on the street holding a sign that reads "homeless and hungry anything helps" and saying "You've been here every day this week, you can't get anymore aid, you need to leave." That's what this reads like. Limit posts to once a day if you really want to regulate the comm this much, but let the people giving decide the amount. Change the format to require labels like "need for long-term" or something but this just feels like overstepping and a good way to further alienate people who can and want to give more.
display name is changed to "emergency aid" --pedantic and unnecessary, just avoid the struggle session and keep the comm as it is with the added weekly advice/non-monetary aid posts or something
users communicate if they are open to non monetary resources (local aid groups, etc.) --people should ask in the comments before offering advice, the posters shouldn't have to add this, it should be a given that unless explicitly asked commenters should just shut the fuck up and move on or wait for a thread where advice is meant to be posted
user requests aid, amount requested in title using [$0/$x] format --this is fine but it has the potential for alienating those who can only give a small amount or stopping those who could give more from doing so when it should be up to the person giving how much they want to contribute, it's none of the community's business how much is being given
users donate and report the post with the amount donated, mods note it or report it with a message indicating they donated so a mod can comment --it's none of the community's business how much is being given, have the OP update the post title and say thanks or if they're good or not or lock it after 72hrs or something, this just feels like such a huge overstep
user updates title with amount received and the thread is locked when the goal is met --it's none of the community's business how much is being given, see previous answer
meta posts are no longer permitted --it's on the mods to determine if this is worth it, but changing a single community rule could address the reason this was brought up
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested? No.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts? Daily, yes, weekly no.
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating? Absolutely not.
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid? No.
do you think we should allow meta posts? I don't think they're happening enough to warrant this.
tldr: NO
Im still failing to see a problem with how things are currently run. can i get more info without calling anyone out? i read thru these replies and im pretty confused about this and why things even need to change.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
how tf are we equipped to know what constitutes a proper limit?
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
how would this even help? what problem is this addressing? are people upset about scrolling by requests? those people need to just block the comm.
If we're bound and determined to "fix" the issue for comrades who just can't stand to see people asking for money, maybe a major format change could be something like a featured megathread instead? i don't even like that idea at all, I'm sure that idea has a major downsides but i still think it's better than trying to limit posts.
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
that seems like an awful lot of work for the mods. i don't want my donations tracked either.
Furthermore, what is the endpoint of this accounting, besides eventually questioning aid receivers on the "proper use" of funds received?
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?

i hate semantics, hate hate hate hate hate them.
do you think we should allow meta posts?
"meta" as in users attacking or questioning aid receivers, like hella super

"meta" posts as in like...directing donators and requesters to aid programs, yes!
Sticky, sidebar something that might help people get aid they didn't know was available, or help donators wantin to direct their funds to more accountable, established aid programs might be nice.
gotta be
alla these ideas just seem like means testing with different coats of paint.
Are people donating really upset about their donations not "doing what they should"? I... really think those folks need to take a deep breath and reevaluate what it means to give.
What funds spared will not prevent people needing money again; no matter how we wish it were different. No matter how "well" the receiver spends it. Offering a donation —no matter how high— is never enough payment towards the right to judge how well it is spent.
Those who want to arbitrate "proper" use of donated money should either donate to an org, or put their money where their mouth is, and post their budgets!
Then they should sit on their hands and listen, contrite, as their comrades explain sanctimoniously how their spending could be better directed towards more mutual_aid.
- You might not like semantics but "mutual aid" has a meaning and key to that meaning is "mutual aid is not charity" (hence it bring mutual). Right now the mutual aid comm doesn't really function like that, and personally I don't think there's way its set up could ever function as proper mutual aid - which is fine but if you've ever done real life mutual aid work it doesn't look like people asking for cash donations and some cadre giving them. Like semantics or don't, that's the motivation.
  People tend to get attached to mutual aid as a name because it's a cool horizontalist leftist thing to do, but we don't enact that stuff and just take the name.
- some users of the community feel that they have to make multiple posts to even be seen which makes other posts harder unless they also make multiple posts.
  the point of accounting is to help posters to update their post with amount received and lock it when the need has been met so other posts can receive the aid
  meta as in posts related to anything outside of posting asking for aid, comments bumping it or comments replying that they've send the aid which would include both posts detailing suspected scams as well as lists of non monetary aid
users donate and report the post with the amount donated, mods note it or report it with a message indicating they donated so a mod can comment
i think this could be used for potential harm to user's aid posts. i remember c/mutual_aid users mentioning an issue of people not following through with aid after messaging for their details. what would happen if someone reports that they sent funds to a user when they actually didn't? would confirmation default to the person receiving aid?
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
i don't think mods should but i don't have an alternative that i can think of right now to fully answer this question.
- With this proposed system people who say they sent funds and don't will first be warned and then sitebanned.
input for all of these changes should prioritize c/mutual_aid users thoughts first and foremost. from what i've gathered reading this thread, most of these proposed changes are from users who don't interact with c/mutual_aid or are themselves donors. this is not prioritizing the community members most impacted by these changes and instead they're being ignored, combatted, or scared shitless by these potential changes. these changes have very real and potentially dire consequences for these users. all this doesn't feel right at all.
- some of the suggestions were from private messages from people receiving donations feeling that the current state of the community is not healthy. you are correct about the changes if any should priotritize the community members that would be most impacted. I will reach out privately to those people to see what they think should happen. Do you think that we should keep meta-posts?
Setting a limit is pointless as it's all voluntary anyway. I want people to be honest about their needs.
I think a posting limit is good as it will give a better overall view of people's needs in the comm. Those needs don't typically change throughout the week unless it's an emergency
I don't like the idea of this, it's very micromanagey
Name is fine
No meta posts, it's disgusting when people attack each others credibility here and it hurts both the accused and accusers. I don't expect people to be 100% honest here, if they feel the need to lie in order to get fed I'm not going to hold them to the same moral standard I would hold someone who's financially stable and well fed.
I have not properly investigated the conditions that led to this discussion, but:
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
No.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
No.
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
That seems messy and inconvenient, no. Honor system.
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?
No.
do you think we should allow meta posts?
More meta posts about doing things IRL to help alleviate the root causes of poverty.
putting a hard limit on the amount seems like a bad idea. even if some people needing more money leads to other people not getting money (which i don't believe is the case, i believe most donaters will try to donate to a variety of people), some people are just gonna need more money than other people, some people are in more desperate situations that require constant support and some people just need one-off support.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
no
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
no
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
no, because you have no way of actually confirming that they did donate
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?
yea
do you think we should allow meta posts?
idc
The money limit thing is very dumb.
Mutual aid shouldn't have any strings attached to it, nor should asking for it have any limits.
I personally think meta posts are fine. If someone is adamant that another is 'scamming' - go ahead and post that shit in a separate post from their mutual aid request.
users donate and report the post with the amount donated, mods note it or report it with a message indicating they donated so a mod can comment
dumb
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount requested?
no there shouldn't be any sort of limits or conditions on mutual aid.
do you think there should be a weekly limit on amount of posts?
no there shouldn't be any sort of limits or conditions on mutual aid.
do you think mods should keep track of amounts received via user reports after donating?
no there shouldn't be any sort of limits or conditions on mutual aid.
do you think we change the name from mutual_aid to emergency aid?
no there shouldn't be any sort of limits or conditions on mutual aid.
do you think we should allow meta posts?
yes, if someone wants to cry about another user - let them. I don't understand what the point of this post/discussion is even about other than the 'X poster is living in his relative's driveway!!' post from a few days ago.
didn't we LITERALLY have this same discussion half a year ago when the same thing happened and decided to let meta posts be a thing but not let those people comment on the actual mutual aid post itself???
- yes but the only time the right to make meta-posts was exercised resulted in a lot of people asking for it to be changed resulting in this check-in post
No.
Maybe?
Yes.
No.
No.
Hey I'm glad to see this situation getting attention but starting out the discussion post with
This post is to discuss the mutual aid community's rule of allowing meta posts: mutual aid as a community, those making posts in it and those commenting on posts.
We are considering removing the exception allowing meta posts but wanted to involve the userbase before committing to a change.>
Please comment with any thoughts, feelings, or suggestions regarding this change.
and then turning around and saying "okay here's a list of sweeping changes based on feedback" feels like a major shift. I didn't post any generic suggestions about what to do with the comm because I thought the post was intended to be specifically about one rule changing
anyhow, of that list:
No
Yes.
Lean no. Depends on how its implemented.
Don't care
Yes
- This includes various suggestions made by users and mods both on this post, others and the mod chat

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.

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.

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.
If this was how the comm worked, I know about hella resources for people experiencing homelessness in Portland, but I've been hesitant to reach out in these posts because it might be "meta" to offer something other than money.
I've still done so and I'm down to help anyone navigate these systems, but idk if anyone has followed up on any of it.
- Same, I have worked in case management for years and am decent at finding resources and navigating them for people but that isn't what's being asked for and I get nervous about coming off rude or something if I throw suggestions out there.
- I think providing other resources besides money is a good idea! Just the issue of doxxing people’s locations but could easily be DM’d instead
- Maybe we should implement an exception to the rule against meta posting for people who make multiple requests, indicating more of a chronic need than an acute one?
This is something that concerns me and could come across as judgemental...
There's a line between helping and enabling or exacerbating a problem. I'm not here to argue over what aid takes precedence but there's a clear difference between someone who is hungry and someone who is experiencing a medical emergency and the aid part doesn't necessarily always have to be money. Money isn't always the best form of help for every problem and the unofficial vibe in the comm is that it is and it doesn't matter what the people use it for if it helps even for a second. I'm not advocating for judging people's situations but we should be aiming to help in the most effective way possible with our limited resources.

I feel like the current status quo of the comm is just demoralizing for all involved and I’m not really sure what could be done.

I can’t really speak for anyone seeking assistance, but as an outside observer it feels like people aren’t receiving as much help as they’d like or potentially could and I imagine it’s tiring having to make multiple posts a day with potentially little to show for it.

On the other end of things I think comrades looking to lend a hand can find it hard to know how best to do that. It’s hard to know sometimes who has already been helped and who is falling through the cracks. So I think it can be overwhelming for potential donators and unfortunately discourages people from doing so.

I can’t speak to the administrative or moderation side of things or what would be feasible, but I have some interest in trying to make the comm more effective for everyone involved.
Hopefully other people share their input in ways they think things could be improved.

Idk if that’s the point of this thread or it’s just about meta stuff or whatever…

What specific changes would you make?
We already ask that posters include if they have had their request met to help communicate who has been helped already.
Having moderators decide who is or isn't a scammer shifts responsibility from the user wanting to donate to the moderator team which at this point violates the spirit of the community in so far as we as a mod try not to influence individual fundraising efforts.

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.

Donations are anonymous, so you don't know who is giving aid. I have helped people who have helped me before and vice versa, can't really say who without making that help non-anonymous but we definitely help each other on that comm. Not everybody uses the comm right, but many of us give when we can and ask when we need.
Edit: I'll add there's a chance I lose my insurance this year because of a specific mutual aid action I took last year. There's someone on here that's donated a substantial amount to me over the years and we play video games and chat for hours sometimes (if they're reading this, want you to know I just don't have access to my Matrix right now, not ignoring you, I really miss our chats). I've made some really good relationships with people over that comm.

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.

I've wondered this as well, often out loud in posts/comments. The urge to call our charity mutual aid just to make it "leftist" is a bad one, IMO. But there are some minor differences at least in theory. The idea is that it's a "pay it forward" kind of thing where we help eachother out when needed and then those people help others when they are able. But because of the realities of capitalist life I don't see that happening all that often. The people with the stability to send money regularly to randos from the internet tend to stay the same and the people with serious needs tend to stay the same. I think the only real difference in practice is that much of our donations goes to known community members, not random strangers. Does that make it mutual aid? idk, not really probably, but I appreciate it whatever we call it.
I think about this in on the ground work as well. Many many orgs call their work mutual aid when its really just charity. But it feels very hard to ask anything of people who are destitute, even if involving them in the work sustaining them could be liberatory
You could argue that what this community is usually doing isn't actually mutual aid. Mutual aid in most socialist theory says that help should never be a one way street, you should help e.g. house a homeless person but the homeless person should also help the organization keep afloat by helping cut costs or operate in whatever way is within their means. Our loose housing group obviously practices mutual aid, for example, some of the homeless people help cook homemade meals for the houses they're in to help reduce food costs or they help maintain a garden.
I personally think that a homeless person having direct access to donors is better than a traditional charity. In some cases, this does not make sense (e.g. someone needs a very secure way of receiving funds due to threats to their life, many refugee organizations fall into this category and require security people on the payroll to safely help people). Charities are often middlemen that means test applicants for aid and pay out their board members with hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash, in many cases its a racket that uses donations to fund propaganda about how good these sorts of organizations are. Imagine if those hundreds of thousands of dollars were going to people that desperately needed it.
it looks like we are running a very disorganized charity
Agreed it isn’t mutual aid right now it’s a charitable donation request form that works in the most obscure way possible. A real charity would do work to assess needs and ensure that resources went to those that require it most and to ensure a fair distribution, not just based on who posts most and has the most BUMP comments and bot triggers. I’m not presently sure it works how it should at all and I’m not sure Lemmy is the place for it due to the softwares design as a link aggregator.

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.

In case this feedback is relevant, the comm has been abused by certain members spamming posts multiple times per day every day, so I blocked it 🤷

Is that an abuse? or just a consequence of the format making it so posts get easily drowned out?
I don't think those desperate to have basic needs met is on the same level as having to scroll past posts if this is supposedly a space inhabited by leftists that care about marginalized people. As someone who's experienced homelessness I can understand not wanting to get to that point because it becomes exponentially harder to leave it once you're there.
- Yeah. When I post multiple times a day, it’s because I really need help and nobody is…helping me.

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.

I don't see how it's possible to run a mutual aid comm with anonymous people scattered all over the world. Mutual aid really requires a much closer knit network of people working together in tangible non-monetary ways. I've done a little mutual aid offline, and mostly it's the combination of a plan and people giving the right aid and advice to advance that plan that really changes people's situation.

What we have is a charity comm. If we're going to run a charity comm some regulation would help.

Limiting posts to one per week, or month, per account to stop the competition for visibility and subsequent blocking of the comm by people overwhelmed by the number of similar or repeated posts. Hexbear is not a large community, and many people are now blocking the comm because it makes them feel uneasy.
Enforcing the use of an external tracking tool like GoFundMe so people can be confident when targets are or aren't met for a given post. It also provides a little bit of legitimacy and makes donations easier for many people who would be considering it.
Allowing people to provide suggestions for local support such as specific food banks or shelters: things that may reduce weekly repeats on the charity comm. Allowing people to suggest alternative purchases or actions, such as a more cost efficient alternative could be useful.

Regardless of moral judgements, donators need confidence in the system for the comm to function. Otherwise it's just a drama generator that fosters contempt and mistrust while also leaving people feeling abandoned. A couple of incidents have really blown peoples trust, and left them fatigued. The situation is not going to change unless adjustments are made. As for discussions about the validity of a users cause - evidently, even when discussion of causes is forbidden, people still seethe and it still seeps into and erupts throughout the whole instance. The amount of recurring drama from one incident alone that is taboo to talk about is enough indication that simply banning discussions isn't actually helping much, if at all.

This is where I am and I also feel what @iByteABit@hexbear.net has commented with below.
I am a person who can, at times, donate to people in need. But, at a point when it became overwhelming, I had to block the comm (and feel like shit for doing so) and prioritize in-person, local donations over the mutual aid comm. Here is my reasoning for what it is worth:
-The frustration of seeing people shouting over people who clearly need the financial assistance more. This is not to say people cannot ask for help without being in extreme danger, in fact, I don't want to imply that at all. The people "shouting" began to prey upon empathetic posters with guilt-trip, ALL CAPS, calls to action based on dubious urgency. They would aim to eclipse other members who contribute more to the site, who are less sensationalist, and I'd argue more at-risk. Can I prove any of this? Nah, of course not. But, any decent comrade shouldn't be trying to drown out his other comrades in need and they assuredly shouldn't resort to emotional manipulation to do so. We're all ~~socialists~~ liberals here, we're empathetic to a fault. There is no need to emotionally manipulate in order to be heard. Just tell us what you need and be respectful to your fellow comrades with your posting-etiquette. For this reason, I am in favor of limiting the intervals that members can ask for donations with new posts/threads. Bumping or whatever can occur within a mega thread or something. Updates on the situation should occur from the poster in the thread that already exists, otherwise. Spamming the comm with bump threads is just spam that, as others have stated, leads to an emotional-manipulation arms race that ultimately causes high-empathy, generous comrades to get overwhelmed and block the comm. It is my belief that a socialist legitimately in need would not resort to these tactics to begin with and so I am highly skeptical that the posts I'm referring to aren't just some fascist ass-clown abusing goodwill as a hobby and directly harming legitimate comrades in the process.
-The frustration of not being able to reliably, anonymously donate to the people I want to help. Many times when I attempted to help, the medium with which assistance was requested either failed to process because the institution itself thought I was being scammed and blocked in a paternalistic manner from the recipient or I became sketched out by the platform I was being asked to use. I don't intend to dox myself when I want to help people and I don't want to have comrades in need feel unheard because they are using platforms that don't allow for international/anonymous donations. For this reason I am in favor of a mod-sanctioned and organized method to reliably donate to the people in need of assistance.
-The frustration of seeing the communities limited resources be essentially on retainer for just a few charismatic members. Asking for an indefinite subsidy can only serve to limit available resources for comrades experiencing unexpected emergencies. I realize that this line of thought may lead to dubious, theatrical "emergencies" becoming widespread in an effort to "compete" for the communities resources; this is why there needs to be moderation that curtails such emotional manipulations. For this reason I am in favor of anyone seeking indefinite subsidy to be required to set up a patreon or GoFundMe for some basic transparency to protect other comrades in need. In this golden-age of scamming - I really fail to see why using a payment platform is undesirable for both people in need of help and those seeking to help. The concept of "anonymous charity on the internet" is painful naivety.
I fully agree with all of these ideas.
Lemmy is not the right platform to host something like this, especially in an instance that's almost exclusively working class.
There are dedicated platforms for charity that do it better than this one ever will, the most Hexbear can do is to share each charity goal, especially in cases where someone needs immediate and urgent help.
Having a small posting limit shouldn't hurt anyone that's not spamming on purpose, you don't need to be posting multiple times a day to get help, you are just overshadowing other people who also need help.
When I have the ability to give a bit of my money to someone here, it's completely logical that I want that money to go the one that needs it most. Steps need to be taken to distribute our help better, that means we should know when a goal has been reached, and we should make sure that everyone is heard when they ask for that help.
The last point is also very important, there are several cases of people who obviously need guidance and other forms of help more urgently than they need financial help. That's why helping someone find direct and real life help from organisations that exist for this reason can be life saving even.
All in all this community has achieved some great things over time, and some comrades can manage to get over rough patches and difficult situations partly thanks to it. It's a good thing it exists despite the many difficulties of making such a thing work on a leftist anonymous site with people all around the world who don't know one another at all. But it should be improved to try to overcome some of these challenges and make it more effective and impactful.
I'm OOL, what happened? Am I even allowed to ask? lol
Edit: nevermind I think I pieced it together
- the inciting incident for this post was a meta-post recently but the history goes back years. its messy.

This community's existence is literally the very reason why I've been able to keep being alive. At times, I've been able to receive assistance from less anonymous sources, but Hexbear is the place that truly kept me going considering the amount of support I've gotten here.

This isn't an exaggeration—if I look back on my life for as long as I've been in these shitty circumstances and reimagine me navigating them without c/mutual_aid, it's a very nerve-wracking hypothetical to ponder. I most likely would've been dead soon enough.

Skepticism is certainly expected, but I feel like the desire to weed out scammers or disingenuous people is seeming so strong through this struggle that people are myopically forgetting to consider what some hard restrictions on this community would actually entail for the state of some of our lives.

I hate that I have to rely on c/mutual_aid to literally survive; that brief period where I actually had a job and didn't have to use this community as a recipient (and could even use it as a donor) was the happiest time period I can recall while being through this whole mess. And then, without an iota of transparency, that job chops me, but after trying to find work since then, even at the least demanding (in terms of requirements) workplaces, I realized the ride will continue to be a long, bumpy one. I hate working with animal products, but I went as far to apply to places like McDonald's and KFC, and I still couldn't get hired.

Being Black and transfem led me to this hell, but something I've always picked up on from people is that they might do something like put #blacktranslivesmatter in their bio but not actually understand just how harsh it can be to live this way, especially if you are in a reactionary region, as I do. And, as I can see, I'm not the only person who is saying these sort of things.

I don't know what else to say other than I hope we come to a reasonable solution here. This anxiety is far from what I need right now, so I'm going to try not to read these comments too much.

I think it's in a bad state and recently blocked it. A space where community members can help each other out in crisis is great, and while it sometimes functions like that, it's used as an uregulated fundraising charity just as often.

When we see people asking for hundreds of dollars in donations every month, we need to ask if that's actually within the scope of this site to handle in a safe manner. As it stands, I don't think it is. 100 % of the risks is put on the person donating, as that's the only way we can do it with the resources available, but that's an awful way to do charity.

At the very least, I think the current warning in the comm about posts not being vetted is not clear enough and should explicitly warn users that they might be getting scammed.

Other than the sidebar and a community featured post we don't have much options for increasing awareness but I'll loom into solutions for this. Thank you

A lot of scratched liberals in this thread. Some of you really couldn't help yourselves, could you?

A user spent the money on drugs!

Who gives a shit? Would it matter if some of the Palestinians in Mutual Aid wanted to get high after seeing their families murdered? No, it wouldn't. You're just means testing based on location and circumstance. If anything, I appreciate the honesty and transparency. But rather than trying to help people deal with addiction, some of you saltine-looking motherfuckers would rather wag your finger at vulnerable people as you pearl clutch over """"crime"""" the way your fellow liberals think drug addiction deserves jail time.

A user got too much money!

Again, who gives a shit? If you think someone got too much money, then don't donate to them. It's as simple as that. Nobody is making you give money to anonymous strangers.

Someone is scamming!

Yeah, no shit? You're sending money into the void. It's anonymous. Nothing you see on the internet is real, even when people have their real names and photos attached to a profile. That's the risk you take when you contribute to Mutal Aid. Donating to someone, then finding out it was a "scam" is on you. Do you go around telling people your social security number? How about your debit card PIN? Because I do. I tell medical professionals and social services my SSN when I think I can trust them to use that information appropriately. If I get a scam call, I don't tell them shit. I hang up. Mutal Aid is similar: either you trust the person on the other end to use their discretion or you don't. If you don't trust them, then why are you giving them money? If you do trust them, then why are you getting up in their shit over how it's being used? You're not donating to improve the material conditions someone lives in. You're donating to have power over them. Fuck you.

They didn't spend the money on what they said they would!

You sound like the reactionaries who piss and shit all over themselves because poor people have smartphones and refrigerators. That's you, except you're saying it to people treating themselves to a nicer meal or having a Netflix subscription they can watch while they live outside in a fucking tent while it rains. If you want to have it be for a specific thing, then be upfront about your means testing. You can DM the user about getting them a gift card for a specific thing or call the place the person is going to be buying their $200,174,192 doodad and pay for it electronically. But don't do this shit where you give them money with no strings attached, then try to attach strings after it's been handed over.

Seriously a bunch of you cracker liberals are just mad the filthy poors don't kiss your feet and wipe your ass. The fuck are you even here for? LARPing-ass poser leftist dipshits who want to maintain unjust hierarchies that benefit them.

People who are posting stupid shit in this thread deserve this level of abrasiveness and calling out. I had to disengage last night because there's an entire 10 replies deep thread complaining about the fact that the online message board gossip they just heard about hasn't resulted in a homeless person getting banned from one of the only places allowing them to access survival funds. That level of hate is vile. Frankly this site would never allow that kind of dog whistle and concern troll style posting against our GSM and POC comrades and we shouldn't tolerate it against homeless ones.
Pretending that some kind of rules lawyering and virtue signaling on an online anonymous message board is going to "more efficiently" solve mutual aid problems is equally as stupid as thinking that we're going to start the next communist revolution or "get Bernie elected". Grow the fuck up.
We're ships passing in the night. Some of those ships need money. Other ships want to help. Leave it alone. It's not the community's business to get into this drama. It's the business of the users involved and the mods/admins on how they want to run mutual aid. Making this the communities business is going to be a good way to fuck up a unique and unabashedly good part of the fediverse permanently over some petty Hasan vs Ethan style bullshit. These aren't podcasters mining drama for clicks, they're real people.
- 10 replies deep thread complaining about the fact that the online message board gossip they just heard about hasn't resulted in a homeless person getting banned
  Exactly. They're being classist scumbags and if anyone should get banned, it's them for being reactionaries. We all know the War on Drugs is a sham, yet here these fucks are wanting to wage it against other users over some bullshit.
- Honestly disgusted by that thread and the wider chilling effect this already seems to have. I understand people want to feel like they're doing the most good possible, but that doesn't give anyone the right to dictate how aid gets spent. These are systemic problems that cannot be fixed by wiring someone cash.
Also, just gonna be very open with my past use of mutual aid money to back your point, how many people who post on that comm are in recovery? I was in active addiction when I started posting in mutual aid. Did mutual aid money go towards fixing my bank account after I overdrafted it getting booze? You bet it did. Did that same mutual aid money go towards getting me to outpatient appointments, detox meds, and other basic necessities? It certainly did.
There is a fairly big recovery community on mutual aid, with one user regularly posting to get their subs, me regularly posting about getting their life together after leaving rehab, another user doing the same, ect. There are so many in recovery users that started as addicts, that have proven that they used that money to better themselves, but outside observers just see a bunch of addicts and just shit on us. So many of these people haven't ever actually donated or posted, their opinions don't matter but they're being considered for some reason. I've made some of my best friends on this platform through that comm because we really show up for each other on there. I've said it a million times before, but there is one person on here that has donated quite a bit to me over the years. I really really miss that person, it's really upsetting to me that I don't have access to my element right now because I miss our gaming sessions so fucking much. I just put it in every comment I mention them in case they read it so they know I haven't forgotten about them
I haven't used c/mutual_aid (neither need it nor have any income to put towards it, sadly, but if I did it would go to a different mutual aid setup online) but some comrades gave me money when I was in active addiction so I wouldn't be in withdrawals over Christmas many years ago and I will forever be grateful to them even now that I am many years in recovery and sober. Agree 100% with all of this.

my 2c as someone who isn't in a position to give financial aid but could help with some things like helping teach skills, review CVs, drive someone places, be a fake reference, help with shopping etc, potentially put someone up short term, and the like:

the comm seems to incentivise only financial aid. Fine, money solves a lot of problems, wish I had more.
Because of the competitive nature of posting users seem incentivised to dramatise their needs. Some posts have seemed medically implausible, which does not mean someone doesn't need help it just makes it hard to understand where you can be effective and potentially drowns out folks presenting their needs in a more low key fashion.
People don't list the currency they need which makes it hard to know if you can afford to help
One off vs expected chronic needs are not differentiated. Stuff like "For the forseeable future I need a place to live" and "I am sick and need cash to see a doctor" have vastly different scopes and solutions, and put very different degrees of obligation on someone willing and able to help.

I dunno what the solution is, life is hard as fuck. Hoping there's a way to help more people get what they need.

I really appreciate your points here and think they are important, especially the second one. Ive seen people in other comms talk about how they feel bad or anxious about even asking for aid because they dont feel worthy compared to other posters.

I mostly donate to Palestinian gofundmes because I figured scammers would get more money by pretending to be an Israeli having a panic attack because they saw a Palestinian flag once on top of, you know, them trying to survive a genocide. I don't think there's any real way to distinguish between a sincere person and a scammer in an anonymous forum.

We're already probably the lightest touch active mutual aid community on the internet. It's cool and I like it, but I suspect banning any meta discussion is only going to make donating (already a huge leap of faith sometimes) even less of a trustworthy shot.

I 100% love and appreciate the desire of this site and my comrades to make a judgment free mutual aid zone, people out there are very genuinely in need and shouldn't have to sing, dance and bare themselves to get some help. However, I do think we have to recognise some basic level of practical limits of our opsec requirements and our shitty society. Banning all meta discussion, the tiniest caveat we have to establish some very basic trust, will not help people actually feel able to provide aid to people who need it.

All being said, I think there's a fine line between metaposting and dramaposting. I see no reason the latter should be allowed. Also some relevant world-famous poetry I'm reminded of:

You often say, “I would give, but only to the deserving.”
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
..
And what desert greater shall there be, than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?

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.

I think things should stay the way they are. Maybe there should just be a limit on how often someone can post. It’s a bit unsettling to see some people asking for help week after week, it starts to feel like the help is already factored into their budget and not like an emergency fund.

I don’t say this from a place of ignorance. I grew up in deep poverty myself, and I genuinely wish for all people to be lifted out of poverty and to have all their needs met. Otherwise, I wouldn’t call myself a communist.

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.

Gofundme has stuff in the background beyond softwar:, bank accounts, legal stuff. It's not just a fancy front-end. There are also reasons not to use gofundme for concerns of privacy and anonymity. A hexbear gofundme-like is interesting but would likely involve trusted admins, fraud, requirements on legal banking stuff (sanctions - some of which we may not wish to adhere to perhaps, reporting requirements, you know a whole bunch of shit that gofundme pays people to do). Given that we mightve lost the domain it's probably wise to not rely on a handful of trusted users to disburse funds or ensure those funds are being given properly if done so by some algorithm or automated software or whatever.
I can see the motivation of seeing a semi live ticking up number on people's request for money but that's not the end all be all either. Mere trust and cashapp or whatever is probably the best its gonna be to preserve anonymous donors and anonymity for people asking for short term help.
- I'm not saying completely replicate GoFundMe. Certainly not the actual handling of money. My point is more strictly Lemmy is not built for this.

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 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.

i think i know about the post you're referring to and while i don't know about the veracity of that user's claims (i didn't really engage with that post) my initial thought on it is that those types of claims should be sent directly to the mod team rather than to the community, because of the potential of abuse.

no matter the circumstances of need i would like to believe that everyone who is asking for help is because they need help, and don't want to judge, nor do i feel like anyone is in a position to judge the worthiness of people to receive aid.

if there is a problem with "scammin" well ... then that's a big issue, but not one that should be hashed out in the forum because it could quickly get messy and just feels very against what the community stands for.

thanks fer askin, that's my .02

Having accusations directly sent to the mod team shifts responsibility from the user wanting to donate to the moderator team, which at this point violates the spirit of the community in so far as we as a mod try not to influence individual fundraising efforts.
- So I have a question regarding that: there were some semi-regular posts in the MA Comm a few months ago, I won’t say which specifically, but they highly resembled certain scams I’ve seen online. At the time I kept mum, but I am curious if “I think this might be a scam” messages to the mods are treated differently than “This post has X, Y, and Z, which is documented at such-and-such as being associated with scammers” messages. Or if the mods are 100% agnostic on that front (no pun intended).
- right, then I've a mind that no accusations should be sent. i get people being upset, shit is dire. but while i understand, it just doesn't sit right. even if people are misrepresenting who they are i don't think they makes em less worthy, i don't get to judge why they're doin it. are they taking money outta months of the other people who need help? i don't think so. i don't think there's a set # of peeps putting out a set # of dollars. i donate to people when i can, that's the rule i use. i donate less lately cuz... well, take a look at my new name and guess...
  if no one wants to vet worthiness and —to be clear— no one should be, then we're right back where we started: no posts attacking other users. those should be treated same as those smarmy judgin comments i see sometimes: straight to the effin modlog and a warning sent that reminds people of the spirit of this space
The scamming bit is also difficult to sus out due to the nature of the forum. Most people find taking donations to be demeaning and stressful, scammers are a minority. The only way a donator could assuage their concerns is by talking with the person that needs help about the situation, really.
If only we didnt have capitalism, itd be much easier for the state to help people.
- Trying to determine who is scamming would also mean defining what constitutes a scam or not. Which for certain obvious definitions like okay sure but trying to draw a distinction where it's less clear is just means testing. Trying to clearly define a line of who is allowed to ask for help and who isn't is neoliberalism of the highest order

Mutual_aid being used for scamming is inevitable I think, it is sad but idk, it is what it is. If I help 4 people, and one of them was lying and scamming, I still helped 3 people.

I think the non-monetary aspect of "mutual aid" could be focused on better in this community, instead of "aid" just being solely monetary donations, we could organise groups and discussions devoted to keeping each other honest with finances, and helping each other budget, find potential sources of income, things like that. Have it work like an actual mutual aid org instead of just a donation bucket. Maybe have a monthly/weekly discussion topic about financial issues and ways to deal with them, or more emphasis on mentorships and accountability, if people have trouble organising their finances and would like someone to help keep them on track for their longer term goals.

This isn't unique to this mutual aid comm, I've seen way too many people spiral despite getting financial aid, because they don't have the emotional support network they actually need to push past their current issues. I don't think we can do things on the same level as an IRL organisation, but a little bit of help beyond just financial aid, might end up going a long way, both for the health of the comm and the people in it.

At the same time, I do recognise that being too open about locations and events is bad opsec, and I'm honestly not really sure how to square that circle.

I feel caught in this tension of paternalism vs being solution oriented, you know? I don't want to be lecturing on what a person needs to do or feel the money has strings... but also if a person is requesting the amount they are as frequently as they are - they are in a real crisis, crisis even a sudden infusion of quite substantial semi-anonymous cash (as much as hexbear could donate) won't fix because some of what's keeping them down is systemic society level issues and maybe more intractable personal health issues like mental health or chronic medical health. I could care less if they wanna service an addiction or buy ubereats (I waste plenty of money on both), that's their perogative - but I do hope there's some forward momentum and, really, a spot of cash here or there is probably not gonna be that. What I would hope for is they stabilize out of a crisis and hook into their local scene not just for aid coming to them but ways they can assist others as well but I feel so trapped by a sense that this is a paternalistic or whatever attitude!! Ugh
- I feel caught in this tension of paternalism vs being solution oriented, you know?
  I agree completely. I've been worrying overnight about how my statements will come across as overly paternalistic, which isn't my intention, I think mutual aid has a lot more avenues, even anonymous online mutual aid, than just financial aid. But as someone (currently) in the position to donate and not need help. I've been there in the past though, not here, but I know how dehumanising some of these systems feel, refusing to view someone as a person, and making them take "courses" or "classes" that do nothing but waste time in order to jump through hoops to get a little bit of aid so they can get back on their feet. No allowing of long term planning outside of the few narrow avenues within their scope, trying to just push people back into being cogs at the bottom of the machine being ground into dust for profit ASAP. Even a "well intentioned" system can still prove dehumanising to the people using it, and any choice made is going to upset someone, there's never going to be a "one size fits all" system. All we can do is try to organise a system that attempts to help people within the scope and scale we are capable of.
  I do still stand by my idea that organising and focusing on the non-financial aspects of mutual aid, as best as we can online, will help with the "mutual" part of mutual aid. Just reading the comments here I've seen plenty of great ideas I never would've had by myself. I think there is a way to leverage the online forum aspect of Hexbear to create something that might not be as good as an IRL mutual aid org, but can do some additional good beyond just helping people keep their heads above the water. Even if the system is opt-in and no one actually opts in, because they don't want a "lecture", they want their rent paid, it still gives us ways to organise, fix and improve things. Refusing to change things because "it might make things worse" is how liberals behave. We can always change things back if a new rule system doesn't end up working well.

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 definitely get the instinct here, but the status quo is that metaposting is allowed (just not direct reply comments) and I count two metaposts in the past month. The one that incited this post, and one of someone thanking the donor who came through for them, weeks ago.
I don't think that's an unmanageable level of metaposting or being done in bad faith. If they were proposing opening up more metaposting I'd agree with you but the question being posed is keep the status quo or shutting off all avenues for feedback or calling out anything, because the mods don't want to be the ones to handle concerns for ethical reasons. So that kind of nixes handling it privately.
I appreciate that reactive comments just harassing people asking for help are deleted and agree we need to clamp down on those as strongly as possible, but I don't see that problem happening with posts, historically

To be clear, I never intended to scam anyone or anything like that. When I asked for money for a new battery for my car, or whatever, I wasn’t lying. I never intentionally misrepresented my needs. I’m just fucking stupid. I would ask for money for some particular thing, and then instead of holding onto it and being responsible, oops!, I’d go buy something stupid, and no, I don’t mean drugs (I need to clarify something about this, down-comment 👇).

I did not spend all or even most of that $4,000 on drugs.

I am a drug addict. So I do sometimes spend some of the money I’m sent on drugs. Some, but never all. I am not the stereotype you probably have in your head: drugs are not the most important thing to me. When I asked for money for a particular thing, that particular thing is what comes first. When I ask for money for gas for my car I NEED GAS FOR MY CAR.

If you don’t believe me, whatever. You believe what you want to believe.

I think I’m probably just going to burn this account since I don’t like how this keeps persisting, and I feel like I do owe it to you to not be silent. Since it feels like I caused this mess. I'm sorry for not saying anything earlier.
For anyone else I was the one who gave her the 4,000$. It was from what wasn’t taken by the hospital when my mom died and things were sold off. I don’t have any of what I got from my mom anymore since I gave to others here and elsewhere, but I just wanted to say. It really distasteful and also how to word this. Some of you are doing more than just attacking her and still bringing this up, but also I think genuinely harming things as a whole.
I believe her and trust her that she didn’t spend it all on drugs, and besides that she did use it on her needs and to help herself. and I remember she also used it to help others to in her community, which is really amazing considering her situation to sacrifice like that as well. I also gave her that money all upfront since I didn't want to make her jump through hoops or like make her go through others when she legit needed it more than I did and I still stand by that. And I don’t regret giving it to her.
But it is pretty reactionary and fucked up how a good amount of you immediately go to just blaming her just because of addiction. And it interesting a lot of you are getting mad at her, like I could get mad as that was my 4,000$ but I didn’t. If I’m not mad at her for that, none of you should be either no? Like just let it go, besides it was between me and her, not the rest of you. Like some of you can fuck off for giving indignation. I also gave that much because legit like how is someone suppose to get out of being a situation like she in, if all people do is constantly just give band aids to a bleeding wound?
I dunno, honestly seeing of this stuff just depressing and disappointing. I feel like I just made things worse to be honest.
- Assuming you're still around to see this, I think you did the right thing.

when i was in dire straits and in danger of losing my lease one of my requests was killed in the cradle because the first comment said i was a faker. remove that shit

I get the desire to center the folks receiving aid, but if the donors don't feel like there are enough safeguards wont they just stop donating? You can try to convince them or shame them, but that probably isn't going to work, especially when they could very easily find somewhere else to donate that has systems of accountability, demonstrable impact, etc.

Is there a way we could sticky a thread for meta discussion of mutual aid posts so at least they're all contained? I know users including myself have had feelings about the comm and there really isn't a good way to express them as it stands. Completely not allowing criticism (good or bad) is why a lot of us left other social media platforms and I'd hate for this place to get that way. I'm also not "online" enough to know if there already is a mechanism in place for what I'm talking about. If there is, maybe it should be more apparent to people like me who have a more luddite approach to the Internet.

We could community feature (pin/sticky) a meta discussion post in the mutual aid community and seems to be a good compromise between what the current rule is and what the proposed change is

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.

could be automated with a bot. better than having individual mods in the loop IMO
- Some tasks sound easy to automate but not always, better to prove the system is useful first with mods in the loop, and if the volume becomes a burden automation can be investigated.

This is the reality.
We're a small community. Funds are limited. Trust is everything.

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

none of the changes would be with the intent of placing means testing on users posting there, more so trying to standardize it so that everyone can get a fair chance of being seen there while trying to make space for non-monetary resources to be shared.

There’s nothing wrong with buying Taco Bell and “random bullshit.” I don’t think this attitude, expressed many times over in this thread, that homeless people have to live the most spartan existence in order to deserve help has any place here.
- People here don't hold homeless users in contempt. They are limited in what they can provide. Yes, homeless people should not have to live the most spartan existence, but if the limited funds available to us on hexbear can either provide for two people sparsely, or leave one to starve while the other feasts, I think I know what we'd pick.
  You made people feel helpless, and they disengaged from donations.
  Trying to explain yourself over and over again isn't helping anything -- and I really really don't mean that in a cruel way.
come on this sucks. who cares if they get takeout or things you specifically don't deem necessary. this is a paternalistic mindset which i feel like comes out when people donate and still view their donation as their money rather than the recipients money at that point. when it's in their account it's theirs to use as they please and they shouldn't have to feel sorry for not spending it as you would've.
also if i was surviving day to day i think it would be extremely fair for me to want to spend some money to just enjoy things, just as i think it would be fair for you to do the same.
self crit on why you believe yourself an arbiter of what poor people are deserving of.

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:

some people lurk/donate without posting
there may be opsec issues we could fix by encouraging donator alts
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

I think it's fine as-is.

The WWW is plenty big. There's risks in everything. My risks when donating make paypal a nonstarter, worst case for me is probably someone unfortunately winding up in a situation that makes the cops look at me. I don't want that. Monero and a venmo account I've acquired which can be funded anonymously.

I like how, no matter how many times I say that I didn’t blow all that money on drugs, that I don’t spend all the money I receive on drugs, this shit just persists and persists.

Nobody was honest with me when I posted threads asking if everything was alright, because it seemed like something was up.

I don't know what any of this is in reference to but it seems pretty strange to be worried about the chain of custody of money you give to someone on here but not give 2 shits about BDS or where the corporation you work for spends the product of your labor...

Why are beggars held to a higher standard than capitalists?

The problem we're seeking to solve, the problem that hurts to see over and over, is quite intense grinding poverty along with other attendant problems, for example chronic conditions. It's one thing to spot cash to a friend or a comrade or even someone begging irl so they can get smokes, or raise funds to cover someone's birth expenses, its another to more or less try to get someone out of crisis and then help them get out of poverty - but with no boundaries or plans or often training on the side of donators and then hoping that the person asking for cash can get all that sorted presumably on their own potentially without formal help from something like outpatient mental health or irl social workers or shelters, etc. Potentially wkthout the latter because people have had plenty of bad even traumatic experiences engaging with formal services and anonymous cash really can make a small difference day to day even if it doesn't seem to add up to an arc or momentum.
I know how you feel, I only have so much to go around. My sisters ask for money, my friend got their disability cut and I spot her quite often, I donate here... at where I work it's easy to see how far people fall and the most I can do is help stabalize and then kick em out the door for the next round of people in crisis.

Honestly looking back over this thread makes me afraid to even ask for aid anymore. I had no idea it was this much of an issue simmering under the surface and that worries the fuck out of me because I rely on this place to keep myself fed. It honestly feels like fixing something that wasn't broken.

the community has ebbed and flowed with the amount of use and understandably so it is being used more than in the past. the intent of the changes is to try and reduce barriers to those posting in the community and make it more fair for all posters. this is a follow up to the change we made no longer site pinning individual mutual aid posts and dealing with the increasing amount of meta-posting regarding the community and those that use it.

No perfect solutions here.

Meta stuff should be kept to a minimum. If somebody thinks/knows a post on the comm is dodgy, they probably should DM the mods of the com with their 'recipts'... but... we're all mostly strangers to each other here so I'd be incredibly surprised if more than a tiny fraction of these "snitch" DM's would have iron clad claims. But if the mods decide there's enough there to act on, it should be a mod who drops a post about why a specific user or post has been locked/deleted/banned with comments from the other mods on the post letting the rest of the hexbear user base know that more mods were okay with the action than not and the conversation stops there.

Nobody here should be gatekeeping what "mutual aid" means. This is an online forum, of anonymous users, where practically no Hexbears are ever physically around another Hexbear user. What "mutual aid" means in this context is pretty much, drop a few bucks in a Venmo or post emojis of sympathy. If you want to drop some change in somebody's digital tin cup, awesome. If you're worried about "being ripped off" you might want to rethink what you're doing looking at the mutual aid com.

If you're worried about "being ripped off" you might want to rethink what you're doing looking at the mutual aid com.
I think this holds up when its people asking for $20 here and there. Anyone e-panhandling for $20 clearly needs the money far more than I do, same as people on the street. But when its hundreds or thousands for specific needs, I think it does matter that those needs are genuine because that amount of money could have fed dozens of others rather than potentially going to someone who isn't being truthful. I don't think that's generally the case, I think the vast majority of our posters have been genuine, but to say nobody should care at all if they're being lied to is hard for me to stomach
- I think it does matter that those needs are genuine
  In an idealistic way, I get it, it should matter. Only the deserving few should feel free to ask for help and of those deserving few only the most deserving should actually get the help.
  However, I am confident in my thought that none of us here has the ability to figure out who is the most deserving to be allowed to ask for help and receive it.
  In my mind, in this setting, there should be absolutely no difference between a mutual_aid request for 20 bucks every few days or a request for the full amount of monthly expenses. Nobody is required to give anything.
  If a $1,000 request offends you, fine. Give to a $20 request.
  If a request mutual_aid poster posts too many requests, give to an infrequent poster.
  If you think a claim is illegitimate, don't give to it.
  I don't have the ability or desire to be a cop about this, I don't think anybody else has the ability or desire to be cop about this. And because of that, I'm pretty solid in my opinion that "it doesn't matter."

I think regular education about mutual aid would be helpful. For example, while anonymity does mean capacity for harm and then reacting meta posts, look at what happens when donating to, e.g., charities: you end up mostly paying for PMC paychecks and tax breaks for corpos. Edit: maybe adding an explainer comment pinned in every mutual aid post would be a good way to implement this.

I do think that having a vouching system is the best way and my understanding is that this is basically the status quo to some extent. You may want to define some kind of unvouching process in cases where there are verifiable issues. I think this will actually increase trust and donations if communication and messaging are on-point.

So re: meta posts, I think there needs to be more process, not just allowing meta posts and comments. This requires more mod intervention, so I'm sorry to be basically volunteering others' time, but I do think it will be beneficial to have meta posts go through a filter and deliberative process and with clear results and strategic messaging. The alternative, i.e. status quo, is likely to be ad hoc discouragement. The coupling of "this is why you should keep helping our comrades" to any meta posts is very important.

What benefit is there to allowing meta posts? The description of mutual aid should be changed to reflect that it is mainly used for fundraising, but if you don't or can't contribute, just unsubscribe or block the comm.

Meta posts are obvious to spot, but what counts as a "meta comment"?

I responded in one of Bailey's recent threads about the possibility of having small donations coordinated on a regular basis by a few people to cover nutrition/glucose. I'd been meaning to ask that for a while, but in full disclosure what fully prompted me to do it was ATTID's meta post. Honestly if someone I knew online really needed fruit juice every 48 hours and had no way of affording it besides p2p donations, 10 people chipping in a dollar or two a month would cover it. Is that metaposting?

People have also mentioned non-monetary resources and how important they are. Does directing someone to non-monetary resources fall under Bad Wrong Moralizing Meta Posting, or is it fair game? What is the line between conversations about the MA (or supportive comments) and something that's seen as derailing it or unwelcome?

Naturally, I gravitate to long-term solutions, and it should surprise no one that ceterum censeo commune Hexbeariana esse ædificandum.

I’ve donated twice, one of those was probably a scam in the early days of this site but I really don’t care what people do with the money because if I’m donating it on fucking hexbear dot net I’ve already made peace with it.

If you fear you’re throwing your money away or think this is some kind of parasocial investment instrument you need to move on, stop moralising, and log off.

I think any changes at this point will ultimately reduce the amount that mutual aid users receive so I am against them.

The recipients need to be prioritized over everything else. Onlookers/bystanders don't belong in this discussion at all. The goal should be to maximize aid, not make it easier to ignore cries for help.

so we should continue to allow meta-posts?
- I think no for now

Also I want to say something about the criticism, if you can call it that, I’m receiving down-thread:

Nobody brought their concerns up, either publicly, when I directly asked the community if everything was OK, nor privately, over DM. And then you don’t @ me, so that I can just continue being blissfully unaware of why it seems like everyone hates me.

What’s really cool about this, too, is when someone makes some balls to the wall dumb statement, like accusing me of having bought two cars or that I had my car impounded after I harassed the neighbors (where the fuck did the last one even come from?), I have no opportunity to try to set the record straight. And then it just spreads like a game of telephone.

I've done some self crit and no longer think meta posting should be allowed

I think the path forward dealing with potential scams should be the user who thinks someone is scamming should message the mods/admins, they can determine if the accused user should be banned, and then they make a mod post if they choose to ban them

So part of my issue is I feel like lying is conflated with scamming. I'm not going to hold it against someone if they feel the need to lie or embellish facts in order to get something to eat.
The only reason I'd want someone banned is if there is verifiable evidence of them saying shit like "yeah, I'm taking money from these stupid fucks, I don't even need the money."
They've been resisting being seen as arbiters and I don't think they want the extra workload.
- I agree it'd be extra work, I dont know if there's any way of doing things better than we are right now but wish things could be improved :/

No to all of the above. Honestly it feels like you're trying to fix something that wasn't broken. Was the issue of people scamming even that bad? Afaik all the posts I've seen in the mutual aid comm feel and seem legit. If anything I think we should probably have stickied fundraisers for people who're homeless or on the verge of missing rent. Putting all these arbitrary limits on people's posting feels like it's setting up the comm to die and I hope the moderators understand that people's lives are literally on the line with this shit.

featuring an individual fundraiser at a site level will not be changed back there are too many and it isn't fair to those that don't get the same amount of time site featured as another. pinning them to the top of the mutual aid community could be a good idea however i think that it is better to make new posts that can rise in the active/hot sort algorithm.

It's always the nature of giving money that the funds could be misused, especially when anonymous. I can't think of way to improve that risk without putting in some sort of hoops to jump through or a verification process, but that is burdonesome for people that need help and people don't want to risk doxxing. The verification that money was given and received through reports sounds like an improvement possibly. It would be good if it could be more for proper mutual aid, like sharing goods directly or organizing food give-outs but people would have to trust each other more or risk doxxing again. A name change could be suitable.

If someone has verifiable information that a poster is scamming or whatever, they can take that to the mods directly, but I agree with the idea that meta posts cause more drama. As well the maximum request amount seems like a hinderance as some emergencies can be quite expensive, and it's not like a high request forces people to give more, people with the means can donate what they decide.

Mutual aid shouldn't have any strings attached to it, nor should asking for it have any limits.

didn't we LITERALLY have this same discussion half a year ago when the same thing happened and decided to let meta posts be a thing but not let those people comment on the actual mutual aid post itself???