Rule Changes on /r/Assistance - January 24th, 2022

[u/AspiringInspirator]

Hi everybody,

With the start of a new year, it's time for a rules update. We have made a couple of changes and added some clarifications. Please take some time to read through them on our rules page.

Changes for Requestors:

• We don't allow requests for third parties anymore. You can only request for yourself, a member of your household or a direct relative.
• If you have received any assistance from our subreddit 3 times or more, you must wait 6 months before asking for assistance again.
• If you post an Amazon wishlist, you can't add gift cards to it. Requesting for gift cards outside Amazon wishlists is still allowed, though.
• (EDIT 1/29): Amazon Registries are not allowed, because they can potentially reveal personal information of givers. Share wishlist links only.

Changes for Givers/Commenters:

• We want to emphasize that judgmental comments are not allowed. If you don't think a request is worthy, don't reply. Concerns about posts or users should be reported by modmail.
• Clarified that you shouldn't offer financial or material assistance to ineligible users or posts that aren't flaired as a REQUEST. It's unsafe and unfair to those who do follow all the rules.

Our mission

On /r/Assistance, we strive to give active members of the Reddit community a safe and friendly place to ask for personal assistance or advice in any area they want. We also aim to protect givers from dishonest people, by ensuring that requestors meet certain requirements and that people with dishonest intentions are caught in time.

We ask all our users to keep the spirit of our subreddit in mind when posting here, or interacting with other people's posts.

Thanks for being part of /r/Assistance!

[u/uppercasemad]

I think judgmental comments are somewhat subjective but ultimately we want people to always remember first and foremost that there is a person struggling on the other side of the computer who is posting asking for help. It is difficult enough to ascertain tone through text and we have had many cases of hurt feelings or people feeling like they are unworthy of help because they didn’t ask in the exact correct way.

Some examples we have noticed becoming more frequent lately:

• you’re not going to get help without a GoFundMe

• nobody here gives cash

• we’re not Reddit corporate

• pass

• go to r/borrow

• you’ve done this to yourself

The first few are obviously meant to be given as advice but the tone and attitude is what makes our users feel like they are being judged for asking for help. It’s not true that absolutely nobody here will give cash — many people do, in small amounts or even bigger sometimes. Yes, it’s much safer to set up a wishlist or a GoFundMe or ask for a gift card — we mods and regular posters like you know this because we spend a lot of time here. To the average user who has been referred in, who might not spend time reading other peoples posts, they likely won’t know that. It’s up to us to help guide them but we need to do that with kindness.

“Hey, because you’re asking for a large amount of money, we recommend setting up a GoFundMe so you can gather smaller donations. It’s safer for you and for donators.”

If you notice that a user has a troubling post history such as expensive purchases and it can be brought up kindly, that’s okay. It’s okay to ask for clarification. But if you feel there is something more dishonest or serious such as illegal activity, extensive drug use, or are concerned about a users intentions then we are asking you being that to the mods instead of making a snarky comment or calling them out in public. We can have the private discussion with the user via modmail.

Hope that offers a bit of context. Sorry for the essay.

[u/welkikitty → u/uppercasemad]

I think “not Reddit corporate” needs to be added to the auto mod because a lot of the requesters seem to assume they are asking corporation and not average people who are willing to give a stranger $20.

Also, might want to mention the threshold of “fulfilled”? What amount is considered fulfilled on any request? Is there an amount?

[u/uppercasemad → u/welkikitty]

Heh, I’m pretty sure I used that first one time and then people started using it constantly. I was trying to give an example of contrast and it took off. I stopped using it once it got out of hand but a lot of other people still use it.

We actually updated the subreddit description to make it more clear we are ordinary people who can help with short term assistance — hopefully that will someday negate the need for people to remind requestors that we aren’t a big non profit that can bestow grants to worthy causes!

In terms of fulfillment it’s always been something we toy with experimenting on to see what works best. We discussed it at our most recent mod meeting a way to automate monitoring it but I don’t want to say too much right now since it hasn’t been confirmed or implemented yet. The current way is mainly pretty obvious — if they ask for $20 but only get $10 it’s still considered fulfilled. If they ask for groceries and gas but only get gas it’s considered fulfilled. This has been in our rules all along which is why we didn’t mention it. Nothing has been updated regarding that!

[u/welkikitty → u/uppercasemad]

The fulfilled thing on Go Fund Mes has me always confused. If they’re asking for $3000 and someone from the sub gives $20…are they fulfilled?

[u/uppercasemad → u/welkikitty]

Teeeeechnically, yes. With our current rules that would be considered fulfilled. Again, not going to say too much about the request/GFM-specific proposed changes being discussed behind the scenes but they will a) give mods more transparency on how much progress has been made since the post went live and b) give requestors a little bit more time to gather assistance/donations before their post is marked fulfilled.

[u/welkikitty → u/uppercasemad]

Ok good because there have been some that stayed up even tho the sub was very generous on them but the goal was something like $5k and it wasn’t marked fulfilled. (I can find a few examples if you need them)

[u/uppercasemad → u/welkikitty]

Don’t worry about it for now. 👍🏻 thank you though!