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
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.
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.
… 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.