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 [email protected] critical meta posts must not be about specific users and posted in [email protected] 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.
This will be unfeatured in about 12 hours
~~Hello users of hexbear:
Due to recent meta posts in our mutual aid community we wanted to open up discussion about the community [email protected]
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~~
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 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.