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 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.