I have been in the camp of being hands off in regards to cracking down on potentially scammy behavior in this comm due to the potential of depriving others of life saving aid.

But I do believe that there could be some basic guardrails put in place that could rebuild some trust and prevent scamming.

  1. account must be a certain age to post here (maybe a minimum of 3 months or something) brand new accounts that ask for donations immediately upon creation could be banned until they reach that account age.

  2. account must have some history of posting outside of the mutual aid comm, enough posting history to build a level of trust. I think we should primarily give to people who are active participants in the site, as it helps us validate their authenticity.

Addendum: exceptions can be made, such as in instances of accounts designed to fundraise for our Palestinian comrades, but they’d need approval by site admins or comm moderators.

I think these requirements are basic enough to filter out more aggregious attempts to scam the community while not providing an insurmountable barrier to aid.

Even if not implimented as comm rules, I think its good practice to take these things into consideration before donating to anyone on here.

If anyone has other proposals that could make sure donations are more likely to go to members of the community instead of scammers, I would like to hear them.

  • AF_R [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    8·
    3 days ago

    It’s just a weird vibe in here and I think it has gone way overboard in terms of what people are asking for and and the utility of the community.

    There are people struggling to fulfill minor expenses, people who depend on it for rent, Palestinians trying to flee the country, professional aid gatherers posting on behalf of others….

    I don’t know what can or should be done. But I know it’s trying to do too much. To provide the services of a State, you need the resources of a State.

    I have a list of community members to give to once I’m out of debt, if they’re still around. That’s about it.

    • DisabledAceSocialist [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      There are people struggling to fulfill minor expenses, people who depend on it for rent, Palestinians trying to flee the country, professional aid gatherers posting on behalf of others….

      I personally don’t think anything should be done about this, remember that for a lot of people this is literally the last chance saloon, they have nowhere else to turn. I have asked for things that may seem minor to others, but are a big deal to me and I wouldn’t have been able to get without help.

      While BaileyDee and their assorted usernames needed to be banned, there is a danger of going too far in the opposite direction and making life impossible for people. I wouldn’t even be alive now if it wasn’t for mutual aid. I found myself in a situation (wrongful stopping of disability benefits) where I had no income at all for a long period of time, no family to fall back on and no way to pay for anything. The situation got so dire that i ended up on a suicide pact website, searching for someone to help me end my life. That’s how i found hexbear and mutual aid, someone on that website told me about it. And thanks to mutual aid, I’ve been able to get almost everything I need, food, medical supplies, hospital transport, even a washing machine. I would never have been able to get these things any other way, would never have been able to have my foot surgery, wouldn’t have been able to eat (I’ve posted before about all my issues accessing the food bank - they only give you 9 days worth of food every 6 months and most of it I can’t eat due to my cancer treatment, also problems with collecting it.)

      Perhaps a solution would be to prove yourself privately to a mod. How about this: you need to be verified by a mod to post on mutual aid. For instance I would not mind sending a PM to a mod with a photo of my disability benefit award letter showing I have a ridiculously low amount to live on and/or a photo of a medical letter verifying I’m having cancer treatment and recovering from a stroke.

      Verifying yourself would remove scammers, cut down the number of people asking for aid, and donors could trust that their donations are being used for what they say they are.