From the perspective of someone who sometimes has some cash to redistribute on here, I just want to provide some feedback on the semi-recent rule changes in this comm. I don’t think all of them are working and I think this comm needs just a little bit more attention to rectify the situation!
First, and I hope least controversial: the sidebar desperately needs to be updated to reflect the actual updated rules.
Second, similarly uncontroversial, the rules should generally actually be enforced. Not enforcing them consistently is worse than not having them in some cases. This ties into several other issues.
Third thing, clarity is needed on whether or not payment details are allowed in the form of not (immediately) personally identifiable usernames. The rule rn says PII/opsec leaks aren’t allowed and that payment links aren’t, but usernames seems more gray. I thought that usernames weren’t allowed at all until I re-read the post, and judging by the variety of different approaches to providing payment details in recent posts, I’m not the only one unsure.
Fourth thing, I think that strongly encouraging people to update their posts when they receive aid is a good thing for helping spread the community’s limited aid resources around more where they are needed most. That’s good guidance and I wish everyone did it!
Fifth, and to me personally, one of the most important, I am less likely to send money, if I have to effectively dox myself to the poster to do it, and when I have to ask for payment details over DM, that’s basically what I’m doing (its trivial to correspond who I am by timing and payment method, even if multiple people do send them money, doubly so over multiple different posts over time). It’s one thing for them to know my name or my venmo or whatever, but when they can tie that name to a specific hexbear account I start to go from “keeping the risk in mind” to “I don’t think that’s a risk I’m willing to take”. So while I can understand the urge to not have posters dox themselves, the reverse is also true.
Sixth, as a result of having to DM for payment details (both because of the doxing risk and just the extra steps for both parties), mutual aid posters are currently incentivized to violate or skirt around grey areas of the rules if they want to get more aid. Combined with the lax enforcement/unclear rule, this creates a really sucky situation where people in need are punished monetarily for trying to follow the rules.
Seventh, related to #2/maybe #1 and others, I am of the opinion the comm probably needs another mod or two, it’s pretty active and can be a fraught topic when there are disputes, and currently there only seems to be one active mod?
A further revision of the rules to explicitly allow non-doxxing payment methods to be published, followed by an update to the sidebar, would be greatly appreciated tbh. Or something like that. I appreciate all the work done to keep this site safe and functional and such, but these little issues have been nagging at the back of my mind for months now and needed to get out.
Thoughts?
How about Ko-Fi? I know it allows anonymous donations (you can do this by donating without making an account/logging out if you have an account), fees are low, and payments go directly to your linked payment account rather than being held by the platform (this is all according to their official documentation). I only have experience as a donor, though, so idk what the experience is like as a receiver and if there are issues with accounts being flagged or anything like that.
I forgot about Ko-Fi. I have made payments on there too. Like you said, I was able to just plug in credit card info without making an account or anything. Also like you said, I have no experience receiving payments on there. It looks like they forward the payments through either PayPal or Stripe.
Just to add more info to the conversation: neither of those pay immediately. PayPal can take 1-2 days, though I think they have an instant option for an additional fee. Stripe will take 2 days, and they’ll also hold your first payment for a week and pretend this is a standard practice, though none of the others do it. There’s no fee you can pay to get around that initial delay. (I set up online payment processing for my husband’s small engine repair work, and we learned that last one the hard way last fall.)
Thanks for the additional info! When you say “pay immediately”, do you mean pay out to a bank account, or do you mean become available to be used at all? In either case this wouldn’t help with something like being overdrafted or paying bills, but I’ve been able to use PayPal for tap-to-pay so having a PayPal balance might be enough to pay for groceries or similar.
Almost makes me want to begrudgingly suggest Monero, but crypto is such a pain in the ass that I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect people to jump through those hoops (especially on the recipient side).
I meant pay out to a bank account. I knew PayPal offered cards to access your balance there, but I didn’t realize they do the tap-to-pay thing, that’s good to know!