Not sure how many people were around four years ago for the original drama, but @storyofrachel@hexbear.net was a banned user from early on the site's history, and I've seen quite a bit of speculation recently that a current frequent poster in c/mutualaid is an alt of hers due to having a similar MO and personal details (such as them both living in the same city)
For context, u/storyofrachel was an unhoused trans woman, who frequently solicited money from the community and had problems with substance abuse. She eventually made a post bragging about scamming money from users here (I myself was one of the users who sent her money) and blowing it on drugs (with a picture of the drugs in question) and a
bunch of homophobic slurs (TW: homophobia, self harm).
She later claimed that her account had been hacked, which frankly I did and do not believe. She was unbanned but later banned for other shit which I don't recall and am unable to reconstruct from the modlog and came back on a bunch of different alts, all of which were banned.
If there's any truth to this, it is deeply fucked that this person is still here, evading her ban and scamming people four years later. As one of the people who was taken advantage of previously (and, possibly, again with this current user!), people should at least be able to make an informed decision with all available context. If we want this community to function, and I say this as someone who has sent hundreds of dollars to people over the years through this community, we should be able to guard against bad actors who are trying to take advantage of the compassion and generosity of our user base.
Edit: There's an Instagram with both usernames on it, publicly available. It's 100% the same person. Not going to post it because I don't want anyone to get doxxed but yeah.
Edit edit: I'm going to go touch grass now. Anyone who is being willfully obtuse about why I made this post can read it again or any of my other comments in this thread
That was always the problem with /r/snackexchange and the other real-world subreddits I tried to make. 95%+ of the time it works as intended but without some kind of extra safety step there are people who have no problem punching down or sideways. We were never willing to do top-down user verification due to the privacy concern but that was the essential step that we would have needed. c/mutual_aid is going to have those same pitfalls as the site gets larger, especially if people hear about this place before they do Hexbear more broadly.
lol, i always wondered what happened to her. i can’t believe A) its been 4 years and b) i never heard the story of how she got banned
her posts always irked me. even taking them at face value and not being skeptical of her intentions, i was confused at why the community kept rallying around someone who constantly sabotaged herself so much. she’s not someone who is ever going to stop using, because deep down she doesn’t have the desire to.
"Getting someone to stop using" shouldn't be the goal of anyone here looking to do mutual aid online. There are specialized services that help with that and if you want to help people stop using go work with or volunteer at those services.
The goal here should be to keep people alive long enough to make the choice for themselves to seek the help they need. Assuming they even have access to those services, which many unhoused folks with addictions do not or cannot access those services for various reasons.
You aren't going to get someone to stop an addiction by posting at them. All you can do is help them stay alive long enough to hopefully choose to find help
It's so gross and protestant brained when people look at mutual aid and direct giving like they're somehow morally responsible for trying to fix or control a person's behavior. Like yeah they might spend the money you give on shit that won't directly benefit them, sorry we live in such a sad, fascist society that one more good feeling seems more productive than attempting to get out of a bad situation. We're just trying to keep people alive, not perform rehab.
I don't ask for receipts when I give someone cash, but them not coming on here bragging about scamming me, calling me slurs, and then asking for more money is a reasonable ask, I think
yeah i'm not really commenting about your post, just that other poster's attitude about mutual aid. obviously people who are bigoted opportunists that take all the air away are not welcome.
You aren't going to get someone to stop an addiction by posting at them. All you can do is help them stay alive long enough to hopefully choose to find help
to clarify to you in particular, i was commenting in agreement with this point by infamousbit and nothing else, i generally stay out of something as messy as a user that has abused the mutual aid system that i know for a fact has benefited some of our most well-known and kindest people here.
i'm really not talking about the particular user who abused it. but if their abuse leads to reactionary attitudes from others, we still have to work out those reactionary attitudes, no?
i didn’t ‘post at’ her. i politely ignored her and hoped others would wisen up and do the same. i only started passing judgement out loud when i found out 4 years later that my gut instinct was more or less correct, and she’d gone down in flames because of it
she’s not someone who is ever going to stop using, because deep down she doesn’t have the desire to.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around this issue. addiction really alters your neurochemistry such that you behave and think in ways you otherwise might not. Some people say your "true self" is revealed when you're on substances, i.e. if you become an asshole you were really just an asshole all along, unlikely to ever change, and not deserving of additional chances, while other people say you "become someone else" on substances, not liable for your actions, and fundamentally absent from reality for the duration of the substance's effects, and I think neither of those ways of thinking is exactly correct for substance abuse, anymore than it is for medication, especially given the variety of substances and the different interactions they have with our brains and bodies, which aren't even consistent each time we use them, but highly dependent on stuff like mood, food intake, etc... Fundamentally, it's a shame that someone took advantage of a mutual aid community, thereby decreasing its effectiveness. That's really the heart of it. Whether she's capable of change is more of a philosophical issue. u/happybadger made a good post in this thread about the pitfalls anonymous online mutual aid. You either sacrifice privacy or you sacrifice stability. You either make your users vulnerable to doxxing, or you make your community vulnerable to sabotage by bad actors. I'm wondering if there's a way to engineer a resolution to this so you can get the best of both options?
ooooohhh i get it she was one of the bad ungrateful addicts see that's why i always give to my local church because then i know they're good people who deserve it
I hate all of this. What a fucked up and sad situation.
all I've learnt from this is if I ever need money for drugs I'm coming straight to this comm 👍
People on here are genuinely very generous, I've had multiple people offer to give me money for an eighth or a quarter of weed before when I complained about running out. I've declined because I think the money could go to people who need it more, but it's honestly heart warming to know that there are people on here who would sacrifice their comfort just for mine, not even necessarily something I need
This whole situation is really upsetting me, especially some of the attitudes people here seem to hold about "personal responsibility" and addiction (having struggled with this it's not so simple a problem to deal with) :(
Idk how we can solve the problem of trust in /c/mutual_aid or if it can even be solved but I just wanna say people here have helped me and my friend* stay fed multiple times and we really appreciate it
*Receiving money from "tankies" has changed his view of them to a more positive one btw lmao
So as the person who apparently pointed this out to people, I have a few things I'd like to say here.
One, after I posted my previous comment, someone responded to me with more information which confirms that, yes, this is the same person. (I'm gonna be honest, I had assumed it was from pretty early on, given all the things that lined up, so that came as no real surprise to me.)
Two, whatever the story was behind Rachel's behavior years ago, I have never observed her saying anything unkind or inappropriate since her return to the site. As far as I can tell, she at least learned her lesson on that. I've been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, and it looks to me like she's made good on that trust and not been toxic like she was before--in spite of all this drama that has descended on her lately.
Three, and this one is pretty big for me: I have never caught her in a lie on here since she came back. Not once. And as people may have realized by now, I pay pretty close attention.
Seriously, consider her actions in recent weeks, and tell me if this sounds like scammer behavior: First, she voluntarily tells everyone she raised nearly $800 from a single post. There was absolutely zero reason to tell anyone that. Why on Earth would a scammer, whose whole scam depended on making people think they were desperate, tell people they had just received a windfall? And that is of course magnified by the post letting us all know about that $4k. No scammer with half a brain would tell us, and no scammer with even one brain cell would let on that they got so much money and then spent it all inside of a month's time. If anything, that proves to me that she's being honest, even to an arguable fault.
And I want to mention that I have caught at least one recipient of my largess here on Hexbear in a lie (it was an utterly pointless lie, too; I had already made clear I was going to provide this person with money, and they then lied to me to make it sound like they had better means to pay it back than they really did, even though I had not asked to be paid back in any way). I have not given that person any money since, even though they have made posts here requesting funds since then. Another user changed their original ask after someone sent them the amount they requested and said so in a comment, which really rubbed me the wrong way. I reported that to mods but never heard anything back, and the post stayed up, but I never donated to that user again either.
By contrast, Rachel made clear that she was spending the money on food, and honestly, I think the small-time donations really were used that way. But even if not, even if she did sometimes buy drugs with that money, well, you can't give money to a meth addict and expect them not to use it in ways you might not like. And I say that as someone who gave her upwards of $400, all told.
Is it disappointing that she didn't succeed in making her situation permanently better with that four grand? Absolutely, and it seems clear to me that she's more upset about that than we all are. But I don't really agree that her recent behavior makes her a "bad actor."
Actually, misrepresenting herself as a new user and not a new account for someone who was banned quite some time ago is the original lie that you're missing here. I wouldn't have given money to someone who called me a f****t and bragged about scamming me in the past. That's the lie. It's nice you've absolved her, but I absolutely have not.
If it's her, as you say, she should be banned instantaneously from this site.
as a neutral observation i believe mentioning that you are the new account of a previously banned user is a bannable offense
Ban evasion is still a bannable offense even if you don't say you're an alt
In practice, we have lots of people here who are almost certainly alts of banned users, that have managed to avoid repeating the behaviors that got them banned. Some even take variations on the same username.
yeah but like the whole banning process is a complete joke and the rules on what counts as acknowledging an evasion are completely arbitrary on a case by case basis, like almost all of the power users who've been banned just kept / keep posting on the site under a different name that everyone knows is them until they get banned again, wait 48 hours, then just make another account and keep posting
I mean you have to consider that the site mod culture seems to be that ban evading is kind of okay as long as it's not really discussed, but if they were to come back and say "hey this is me evading a ban," well, that's ban evasion
I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. She never said she was a brand-new user, and I don't think it's wrong to come back after years away. I understand if you're not willing to forgive her for using slurs, but I do not at all agree that she was lying by making a new account.
A lie of omission is still a lie. And there's also the bragging about scamming people.
A lie of omission requires context. Otherwise everyone is lying by omission at all times by not telling everyone literally everything about themselves.
Not gonna try to defend the bragging about scamming people, but it was years ago and I don't believe in crucifying people for past sins.
Anyway, I've been touching grass for the last month or so, and have only been interacting with this site in one way: watching this comm for posts asking for money. That's the only reason I'm even here in this thread. If you want to hate Rachel, no one is stopping you, but I don't think that has anything to do with this comm or the rules, and it's really not clear to me what this post is about other than getting mad at Rachel--I don't see any proposed rule changes.
My proposed change is that a known scammer who is evading a ban should be banned for the health of this comm, and that allowing someone like this to operate on here makes it less likely for others who need it to get help
The context in this case is that this person was already banned for various offenses like hurling slurs at other community members, including OP. If she was honest about her identity, he wouldn't have given her money. How is that not a lie by omission?
Do you introduce yourself by telling people about shitty things that you've done in the past? Do you make requests by offering people all the reasons they might want to refuse that request? Rachel was asking for money in a post, not DMing OP specifically asking for it. I really don't see this as a lie by omission.
Do you support the checkbox on job applications about ever having been arrested for or convicted of a crime? This feels like the same thing to me.
Do you introduce yourself by telling people about shitty things that you've done in the past?
No, because such things generally aren't relevant to how I'm interacting with those people. In this case, the user's past conduct is very relevant because people might not want to lend money to someone who was very publicly thrown out of the community for homophobia and abuse.
Do you support the checkbox on job applications about ever having been arrested for or convicted of a crime?
... No? That's an institutional barrier to employment, and not remotely similar to the situation at hand. I also wouldn't support banning people from the mutual aid comm for being arrested for or convicted of a crime, if you're curious.
Is it disappointing that she didn't succeed in making her situation permanently better with that four grand? Absolutely, and it seems clear to me that she's more upset about that than we all are. But I don't really agree that her recent behavior makes her a "bad actor."
This is pretty much where I'm at, if it is the same person they seem to be trying to be better. I'm not mad about them spending all that money, I only posted about it last night because i just sometimes think/wish there could have been better outcomes with that...
@storyofrachel@hexbear.net was a banned user from early on the site's history,
FYI that account's not actually banned.
Huh, you're right. But all her alts are still banned, mostly for ban evasion. Not sure what happened there
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Oh yeah, I remember reading a lot of that. Has it really been four years since. It's amazing how time flies so fast.
This community has really been a life saver for me allowing me to get food for myself and my son when in a precarious situation. I’ve also given back to other users when I’ve had the means to do so.
It makes me sad to think that somebody would take advantage of the kindness of other users here; that said, it seems like this person is openly struggling with mental health and addiction issues and I have enough first hand and second hand experience with those things myself to know how giving thousands of dollars lump sum to somebody in the middle of it is going to go. I guess I don’t have much useful advice to give here, I just wanted to comment to add another voice in agreement with the other users that this comm is such an important resource and I hope that this incident doesn’t scare people off of donating altogether. Seems like it’d be hard to implement more security without making it harder to donate or receive donations. It’s probably a good idea to check post history before giving and decide for yourself whether giving money to any individual person is the kind of help they really need.
Hey heads up the formatting of this comment is off and it's really hard to read
Yeah I don’t know what happened there, I guess trying to indent the paragraphs made it a weird text box or something. I just edited it, hopefully it’s readable now.
Damn this whole thing just sounds sad.
I can't imagine how empty my life would have to be to be so genuinely angry and upset with an online community of like 300 people.
Nobody is forcing anyone to give to anyone else here and now that there's a block button for users it's even less important to ban people imo. If someone wants to give money to the person constantly complaining their life is a mess because they do too much meth then more power to them, I just block and move on 🤷
I personally wouldn't become an enabler bc I don't give that person money, and it's not my place to set the morals of another group of people be it the community or the user in question. The original identity of the user is sort of moot imo bc if you read the posts, it's pretty much what you see is what you get. So if that's not the kind of content you want to see, block and move on.
The only argument I could entertain is, well, if you have money and youre a communist and this other person doesn't it's your responsibility to help them, which I guess would be the case, but you can't help everyone and there are plenty of opportunities here to help others even if its just sticking to the people I know.
The whole situation is just incredibly sad and was only ever going to end in tears after the large donations. You'd have to be very naive to think otherwise. Honestly I'm just happy that Rachel is still alive.
i give her money sometimes. i know its the same person. I dont feel scammed. I can see how someone not knowing the history or not having put together the clues could feel that way theoretically but ultimately I dont think there's anything actionable here besides maybe clarifying the policy on alts of banned users. (though sometimes it feels like the ambiguity gives the team latitude to deal with things on a case by case basis in a way thats positive overall)
Maybe we should have some kind of official ban appeal process? I've seen some heated moments go down on this site and users get banned for it who were otherwise good posters but let emotions or drugs or whatever get to them.
Idk, I wasn't around for this first incident so I don't have a grudge or anything or even much information about it but it does bother me that she won't even acknowledge it happened (at this moment)
I want to believe that that's all that was, some kind of heated moment
In the past at least, acknowledging you were an alt of a banned user was bannable behavior. Not something I'd want to risk if I frequently relied on this place for sustenance, idk about you.
True but accounts also get banned for people finding out they are alts of banned users (like DayOfDoom's alts)
And it's pretty out and obvious now
yeah sometimes. I've said elsewhere in the thread I think the policy (or lack thereof) on banned users alts provides a way for admins to exercise some discretion. Maybe that's unfair, but I generally trust and agree with their decisions. Someone who comes back repeatedly and inevitably breaks the rules each time is different than someone who comes back once and doesn't break the same rules over again, for example. It's easier to leave some ambiguity than it is to spell out exactly what the policy is and risk it being exploited by rules-lawyering bad actors.
God damn. Somehow I missed this one four years ago. Looks like she’s still struggling with life. Sad place to be.
we don't know either
