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

  • RiotDoll [she/her, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    17·
    19 hours ago

    Meta posting opens the door to shame and ridicule. I’ve already seen this happen by browsing the modlog a few times - it just got handled and i think that it’s absolutely good it was handled. i think there’s nothing to really say about MA that can’t be discussed as issues arise, privately. For better or worse, there are people who enjoy wrecking stuff like it. Issues with specific users can be handled by mods and admins - a lot of what can be said about it would be to curtail or limit the function of MA - the additional burden would be suppressive of use.

    Please don’t give any room to the sorts who want to metapost about mutual aid - I’m sure some folks mean well, but it’s just going to enable drama that doesn’t need exist and will impede function

    • trinicorn [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      I definitely get the instinct here, but the status quo is that metaposting is allowed (just not direct reply comments) and I count two metaposts in the past month. The one that incited this post, and one of someone thanking the donor who came through for them, weeks ago.

      I don’t think that’s an unmanageable level of metaposting or being done in bad faith. If they were proposing opening up more metaposting I’d agree with you but the question being posed is keep the status quo or shutting off all avenues for feedback or calling out anything, because the mods don’t want to be the ones to handle concerns for ethical reasons. So that kind of nixes handling it privately.

      I appreciate that reactive comments just harassing people asking for help are deleted and agree we need to clamp down on those as strongly as possible, but I don’t see that problem happening with posts, historically