As it stands now, this community serves mostly as a way to get money. That isn't a bad thing, but cash is not a 1-size-fits-all solution to every problem. Taking care of a persons needs is always priority #1, but at times, said person is unfit to handle money in a way that reliably alleviates those needs. Traditional, local, mutual-aid networks can usually address this in the form of community pot lucks, clothing exchange, etc. Here we are more or less limited to advice and more money.
Making a rule about unsolicited advice and being critical of users, limits us to just money as a tool to solve problems. Sometimes people need a tough conversation to grow as a person, sometimes people need to be reminded of the situation they are in. Yes, the capitalist system is oppressive. Yes, there are systemic issues that prevent us all from succeeding. That doesn't mean there is no situation where decision making is a factor. Sometimes, you do actually need help making better choices. This isn't to shame people for making bad decisions, sometimes there are psychiatric reasons, sometimes they genuinely don't know any better, but you still should speak up so they can potentially correct the problem and learn.
This rule effectively creates a hug-box where we all pretend that personal responsibility doesn't exist, that there is simply nothing to be done. It's incredibly infantile, it's a cope, and the people in this community deserve better than that.
EDIT: I feel I may have had a change of heart after reading the comments left by @EelBolshevikism If you are looking for a somewhat comprehensive response, those comments are likely a good starting point.
This post kind of grosses me out, especially with the (probably incomplete but w/e) context I've gathered from comments on this post, and ESPECIALLY with how I've seen it happen before on this site (without the site learning from it either...). I don't mean that to insult you. While I understand it comes across as patronizing to say, I can't really blame anyone for internalizing probably the most common brainworm in the Anglosphere.
But ultimately I disagree with your point. I don't think personal responsibility... exists, actually. Even supposedly impulsive and random excessive purchases can usually be attributed to some unmet mental need or some sort of symptom of a common form of neurodivergency. Though, I don't want to focus on that too much, because I know it's a really controversial belief and I'd have to go into literally my entire worldview from scratch to explain how any of it makes sense to me - something I don't want to do and would make this discussion (and comment lol) even longer and more painful than it already is. I do have a different problem with allowing criticism of the actions of those asking for help, though.
I can't imagine being someone with a drug addiction, or who wants to numb their suffering by buying alcohol, or otherwise supposedly "pissing it all away" on luxuries anyone more rich and privileged would rarely if ever be judged for buying, even and especially here. Only to be met with disdain for daring to... ask for money with the hope of catching the eye of internet strangers with disposable income. Because buying these luxuries, despite being something others can afford, is seen as questionable merely because you are using the money others gave you (many of which would choose to buy said luxury in a heartbeat instead of giving you that money, and would not receive a single glance of judgement for it!)
Allowing people to criticize people for making the "wrong decisions" which leads to them being homeless (apparently, I think that's silly and if someone is making decisions that lead to that than there are other extenuating conditions, including sometimes mental ones, that lead to those decisions) is problematic for the same reason allowing people to "criticize Wokeism" or "just ask questions" about race is problematic. It isn't that actually asking questions about the sociological construct of race is inherently bad, or that *actually criticizing a community in a good-faith way is bad, but that the culture we exist in is so fraught with an inherently bad-faith and incorrect view of the subject that anyone who is trying to "just ask questions", trying to "speak their mind about the Woke", or trying to "just give advice to someone struggling" is vastly more likely than not
Do you think people are just born into this world homeless? I mean, some probably are, but a LOT of homeless people come from parents abandoning them after coming out, or running out of money due to (rent/addiction/other factor they can't control well if at all). Am I going to withhold money from someone for making the "wrong decision" of coming out to a family they thought was safe? Of fucking course not. And I'd ESPECIALLY not dissuade others from helping them- And that's the issue, the kind of "criticism" that people direct towards those asking for money (yes, even on a leftist forum. Plenty of people here, probably the majority, have just as many ableist and classist brainworms as the rest of the USS of Amerikkka, they're just rarer and more advanced varieties) does not actually help people asking for help change their actions. Changing your actions is FUCKING HARD, especially when you're talking about quitting an addiction or trying to figure out what the cheapest food is to buy, or where to sleep best without cops finding you and fucking ruining your life. People who are poor have to do way more shit to do and pay for way more shit than people who are rich have to (boots theory) and a poor person "pissing away" 4000 bucks so they can have the semblance of comfortable living is always going to be treated worse than a rich person who actually literally pisses away 4000 bucks in shitty overpriced beer because they pay for their large group of friends to go to a sports game and decide to pay for all the concessions, and that bias will hold true here, until either we bully everyone into not having that mindset (WHICH IT SEEMS VERY OBVIOUS TO ME IS THE POINT OF THE RULE) or the user base is no longer Amerikkkans.
If someone is suffering from being fucking poor, than the only kind of valid and not inherently harmful criticisms you can give would hardly ever register as criticism to most people, and would be closer to providing free information, like helping with finances by helping them figure out how they can spend less while still getting the same quality of life and things they care about, or giving tips about working out, or sharing cheaper recipes or ways to get drugs in safer and more reliable ways than they already are or giving them information about cheap addiction treatment you happen to have useful info about from the area. And these are all things, again, that would hardly register and hardly anyone would ever report, let alone ban (minus maybe the drugs thing so they don't get the website swatted, but you know what I mean).
So I see very little purpose to allow people to give unwanted criticism to those who are fucking starving, or getting threatened with arrest for being trans, or struggling with fucking drug addiction, because unless those people are afraid of free numbers and columns there's probably only a few situations where someone would take offense to something that isn't just motivated by the same ambient fucking classism everyone has everywhere and to be completely frank I don't think those exceedingly rare situations are worth the risk of allowing people to simultaneously shit on homeless people while hiding under a veneer of "civility", which the remanding or removal of this rule would cause.
If you think giving money to the person is a bad idea, than just don't do it, and everyone "responsible" will do the same thing as you.
And to be even more completely honest, this is a trend I see repeatedly and it is blatantly created by the discomfort of the privileged (like you or I probably are in comparison to many people on this comm who post) needing to have a constant stream of money to live, because they want the discomfort of seeing a struggling person to go away after they "buy" it with enough money. And I understand that impulse, because seeing people struggle sucks. But this is fundamentally a form of punching down; It's a response that blames the one struggling for your discomfort (and, no matter how reasonable it seems to blame them, no it fucking isn't), instead of the systems and people who put them and you in this fucked situation in the first place.
Leftists generally accept the systemic nature of social conditions. Individual circumstances are given, inherited from the past. Social problems like poverty cannot be reduced to mere individual choices.
On the other hand, the given-ness of our lives does not imply determinism and a lack of free will. Marxism depends on the existence of free will, for without free will there cannot be revolution and social change.
I agree that if someone asks for money, then it is valid for someone to use that money on “vices” just so they can feel human once in a while. I believe that money given freely should be spent freely.
I feel that in this comm, the requests tend to be specific. “I need money to buy some Chipotle” or “need a place to stay tonight” etc. Those requests do impart a responsibility on the recipient. Not an abstract “individual responsibility” that erases social conditions, but a direct personal responsibility to real Hexbear users who probably themselves do not have a lot of money to give.
To say that responsibility does not exist is to say that free will does not exist, that misusing the money was determined from birth and inevitable. I think this is ultimately a destructive view and does not actually help people long term.
Whether advice is helpful really depends on where it comes from; is it paternalistic, or does it contain an empathetic understanding of socially given circumstances?
I tend to agree with lifting the rule, but there would have to be moderation against comments that are paternalistic, and that will be a tough line to walk since it is such a gray area.
You are very much misunderstanding Determinism, comrade. Determinism is less about worrying that the future is set in stone and more about understanding that the trajectory of the future is determined by the forces applied in the present.
There are of course many degrees of determinism depending on the philosopher. In western philosophy (which includes Marx) I think it is accurate to contrast determinism with free will. Marx and Marxism are often accused of holding mechanical-deterministic views of history in which revolution is seen to be inevitable in a mechanical sense. This is plainly not the way in which Marx conceived of history, in fact it is exactly the opposite. For example, writings like his Theses on Feuerbach, especially Theses 1 and 3, in which he criticizes the deterministic views of the mechanical materialists which neglect the essential role of human activity (free will).
I'm not looking to start a philosophical debate in the middle of a mutual aid struggle session, comrade. But if you are immediately assuming human activity = free will, you have already put the cart before the horse.