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.
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 !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~~
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.