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Mutual_Aid discussion post

Hello users of hexbear:

Due to recent meta posts in our mutual aid community we wanted to open up discussion about the community !mutual_aid@hexbear.net

We will never require explanation or justification from a user asking for aid in the community, and the mod and admin team continue to commit to not featuring an individual's mutual aid request to prevent unfair exposure.

In addition, we will maintain a strict "No critical comments or meta comments" on a mutual aid post.

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.

Thank you

229 comments

  • 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

        • Everyone trying to help out should set their own personal limits. For example, I spend my allotment of donation money on our trans homeless housing projects so I can't give much money here. I am able to help people get housing directly from here, and I have done that a couple of times, so I do try to keep an eye on things.

          And yeah, means testing as a policy is terrible. Imagine needing help, dealing with the stress of needing to take donations, and just getting shunted to an off-channel because you weren't deemed worthy. So many charity operations work on this premise, I've experienced it myself when I was younger and needed help. Setting your own limits makes it your problem, not an organizational problem, and not a problem for the person asking for help. I also doubt the usefulness of means testing in a charity, I think scammers can be very conniving and all you're doing is hurting normal people by becoming too restrictive.

          Scammers of course try to ruin it for everyone. In my real world experience dealing with charities and homeless issues, we've even seen certain people violently silence others that need help in order to cut in front of lines by flashing guns or knives. These are all issues relating to the scarcity of help, unfortunately, and they cannot be realistically solved in the current system.

          Housing centric aid imo is the most important and direct form of aid, in my time helping people out irl, I've seen so much money go straight to a landlord's pocket when many of the donors had extra rooms to directly house someone and for much cheaper. Some of these donors have literally never had it cross their mind that they should help house homeless people directly, such is the state of mutual aid related education in this country. Scammers are also few and far between, scammers are selfish and are very unlikely to accept housing in a group-living situation, so it is a self-filtering process. Landlords are genuinely the most evil people in society, imagine encouraging someone with cancer to do a gofundme so they can directly pay you cash at a price that isn't even the base cost of operation for the apartment! I have seen this happen, and people applauded the landlord for not kicking the person with cancer out!

          At this point I'm just rambling and going off topic, I've been wanting to do a writeup about housing aid networks for a long time but I've been very busy lately.

        • Personally, I look at post histories and whether or not they engage in the community at large or if it's all just mutual aid posts. I know that's not necessarily fair maybe but it's how I feel. The mutual aspect implies they do what they can to help others or engage in the community with meaningful posts and discussions.

          It's not a pass/fail thing, it just feels like a window into the type of person asking for help and what they are likely to spend the money on.

          • Maybe there's a solution in this observation? Maybe two comms could be used, one focusing on mutual aid and the other on charity donations, with the mutual aid emphasising the mutual aspect and the charity one emphasising donations.

            Though something like that could just end up with both comms completely dead, or just one very quickly (it's much easier to ask for mutual aid rather than charity) and it wouldn't solve anything.

            • In theory that makes sense, but in reality I think it would just be the same thing spread out. I agree with other users that mutual aid should be more for acute problems instead of a rolling fundraiser to pay people's rents and stuff. Like another user said, who couldn't use a spare $100 for bills every month? I just don't think that's the spirit of mutual aid. We should be aiming to solve problems. The "no rules" way it is currently being handled feels a little more enabling than helpful. Maybe I'm wrong

              • Yeah, I thought it was an area worth discussing, but it isn't really. I kind of torpedoed my own thoughts on the idea in that comment.

                We should be aiming to solve problems.

                I focused much more on this in my main comment on the matter. I think setting things up to emphasise non-monetary aid and helping people get out of rough situations is better than just financial help alone. Though a bunch of random strangers on the internet might not be all that helpful for that unfortunately. I think a lot of people are worried about stepping on toes and giving unsolicited advice, because tbh, that happens all the time with people in crisis, and it's incredibly aggravating. Having a system in place if people want to use it, but it not being mandatory would be best I think.

                • I can see that point

                  However, I think we have a good community here and we should be aiming higher and trying to build something. Getting complacent during a slow collapse of the world order is just going to catch a lot of people here off guard and we will be fighting from an entrenched situation. I don't know how to "enforce" bettering things here and I know different people get different things out of being here, but the loose attitude here is a blessing and a curse. It's a great haven against the regular world, but "they" are coming for us. We should be doing more things through a theory based worldview and trying to build toward that future we all talk about. Unfortunately that requires some personal responsibility on everyone's part to not just be idle.

                  When I was a teen, I wanted to run away to a commune really bad. In my head, it was just smoking weed listening to Bob Dylan and playing naked volleyball or whatever. It's a lot more like being a farmer. It's going to be hard work. There's wells to ditch, food to grow, animals to take care of, things need fixing, there's cooking on a large scale.. After some research, I realized most communes were run by "doers" and populated by people who either did all the work while others fucked off or the "leaders" exploited everyone else. What I'm getting at is we share similarities with the hippie commune phenomena where a handful of people run this site and get to call the shots, and some who are here for leisure. It creates an uneven space where not much gets done.

                  There's a real identity problem with the site as a whole. Are we just a place to shit post about something you saw on Twitter or are we trying to educate and be involved? A mix of both is fine, but I feel like it's a rudderless ship as it stands.

229 comments