Not sure what the best approach would be here, but I'm betting @aral and @fabio have noticed.

You guys might already have a plan or whatever, but... Is there anything the rest of us can do to help?

@iamdorkside @fabio The darn thing is that we can’t just remove accounts that have been suspended as our goal is to try and help them get unsuspended (unless it was for repeat violations of anti-spam rules) and not have to reverify them if possible.

So I’m not sure what to do here.

Thoughts?

CC @staff

@iamdorkside @aral @staff a workaround for now may be to exclude suspended accounts from the @gaza_verified_campaigns posts. The archive already stores information about the current suspension state on their parent instance anyway.

But I also feel that it’d be a bit unfair for someone to be excluded from the campaigns bot just because they have been (temporarily, at least in most of the cases) suspended.

This however points to a disturbing realization: accounts that have been suspended for at least a few days and haven’t had the chance to boost their campaigns actually get no donations.

@fabio @aral @gaza_verified_campaigns @staff

That might be true much of the time, but for some campaigns it might be that the data fetch fails.

https://kolektiva.social/@iamdorkside/116238366745945462

There's also the issue of suspended campaigns. @AhmedOuda, https://www.gofundme.com/f/Two-Brothers-Fighting-to-Save-Their-Family-in-Gaza

@duchesse @fabio @iamdorkside @aral

Hi, I just stumbled on this thread and thought you all might be interested to know that https://lifeline4gaza.com is exactly doing this, but for 2.2k+ confirmed Gaza appeals already. The list features the most underfunded appeals at the top, and updates it quasi real-time.

@iamdorkside @duchesse @fabio @aral
Oh, yes, of course. But people are free to submit their campaigns via the application form on the website 👍

What other things do you mean?

@bugx0r @duchesse @fabio @aral

There's the archiving page. I don't know if or how people use it. I've used the archive a couple times when accounts get suspended, for example. That kind of issue is solved a bit different with LL4G, of course.

@iamdorkside @duchesse @fabio @aral

Yes. ll4gaza is campaign based, not account based. Appeals get only delisted when they get superseded by new ones or are discontinued.

@bugx0r @iamdorkside @duchesse @fabio @aral

Hello. Sorry for interrupting. Furthermore, my opinion may be somewhat off the mark.

Regarding how to keep caring Palestinians whose accounts have been suspended by mastodon.social, I strongly feel that it makes more sense to track these individuals on a campaign basis rather than on an account basis.
However, if we limit the problem to what is happening on Gaza verified, there seem to be several provisionally feasible options.
From a layman's perspective, directly granting authentication to the campaign page would be the simplest solution, but that would be technically difficult.
Another point to make is that tracking people's activity on an account basis has significant advantages. This means understanding people not as fluctuating numbers, but as living human beings, constantly cared by human eyes and with constant communications between us. This condition is essential when operating on Mastodon.
On the other hand, there are currently only about a dozen suspended accounts. This order of accounts could be handled in some kind of batch process.
This work doesn't necessarily have to be done by Gaza verified staff.
Even now, when someone whose account has been suspended creates a new one and resumes their activities, information is shared among us supporters. However, these informations are currently scattered. It is possible to share these more systematically. For example, if a support organization like FediporGaza, to which I belong, were to link informations about suspended and newly created accounts to the campaign pages, list up them and share them, the confusion could be greatly reduced. Ultimately, human eyes are necessary. Monitoring numbers alone is meaningless.
However, in this case, we must avoid sending the wrong message to the people of Gaza that "accounts can be disposable." In the long run, if the people of Gaza are to consistently seek support here, it is still desirable to use one account carefully.

Above all, these actions are certainly necessary, but they are not a fundamental solution. We are like cleaning cupboards in a house engulfed in flames.
The root cause of everything is " DONATIONS ARE NOT COMING IN !!" We must prioritize solving this difficult and structural problem.

@fedipourgaza @Gardenia @millerebonds @gomli @duchesse @AnnaLion @delsaulnier @thoboumon @Enfanthese @raphaellakay @Matfjogel @bilal_mo @belovedyemaya @marion_v @Anmargui714
@shad

@DailyGaza @bugx0r @iamdorkside @duchesse @aral @fedipourgaza @Gardenia @millerebonds @gomli @AnnaLion @delsaulnier @thoboumon @Enfanthese @raphaellakay @Matfjogel @bilal_mo @belovedyemaya @marion_v @Anmargui714 @shad you analysis is quite spot on.

About the “donations are not coming in” issue…actually they are. And quite a bit, given that most of the efforts are centralized around a relatively small platform like Mastodon.

Putting on the data scientist hat: https://gist.manganiello.tech/fabio/dd05601140544dc696c33caf39e9945c

We’ve got on average $4000-4500 donated every day to #GazaVerified accounts. $31.5k raised over the past 7 days.

If they were to be distributed in a perfectly fair way, then the average family will get $177/week. Which is usually sufficient to cover many needs.

But they aren’t. And this is the root issue I outlined already a few months ago - but not much has changed since then.

There are about 10 campaigns that raise >$1000/week (and, despite that, those accounts keep asking for donations on a daily basis, basically taking away from a limited pool resources that should be distributed fairly), another 10 that raise >$500/week, and then a very very long tail.

Even though the average campaign would raise $177/week, the median line is only ~$50/week.

Of course those who are below that median line complain that donations are not coming in - they’re all getting stuck at a few campaigns at the top.

I have made the campaigns dashboard and the campaigns bot to boost the most underfunded campaigns, but many keep donating on a more irrational basis, leaving many families without any support.

On the other hand, I also feel uncomfortable to tell donors how to allocate their money. I’ve been trying to make things fairer for a while, and also expose all the data on the funding, but if someone wants to donate only to a certain person or group of people they should be free to do so.

So rather than fighting against the current of irrational human nature perhaps it’s best to embrace it. And perhaps smaller support groups rather than an everyone-mentions-everyone campaigns system would be better. Because as the number of accounts increases inequality isn’t getting any better - it’s actually getting worse. And if it starts to pass the message that those who mention the most are those who raise the most then this will degenerate into uncontrollable spam and we may lose a lot of sympathy from instance admins.

@fabio

"We’ve got on average $4000-4500 donated every day"

are we sure it's all from Mastodon? because the families with top donations often get a lot of support from donors from Bluesky (and maybe instagram, upscrolled, other places maybe, even X)

@Gardenia @fedipourgaza @millerebonds @DailyGaza @iamdorkside @bilal_mo @aral @duchesse @marion_v @belovedyemaya @Anmargui714 @bugx0r @Matfjogel @thoboumon @AnnaLion @delsaulnier @gomli @shad @Enfanthese

@raphaellakay @fabio @Gardenia @fedipourgaza @millerebonds @DailyGaza @bilal_mo @aral @duchesse @marion_v @belovedyemaya @Anmargui714 @bugx0r @Matfjogel @thoboumon @AnnaLion @delsaulnier @gomli @shad @Enfanthese

I've used X as primary platform since my first tiktok account got banned. Friends and family mostly use meta. Donations are a bit more visible on x as people will post the appeals, potential matching campaigns, and receipts.

There's some overlap of campaigns between LL4G and GV. There's definitely overlap between LL4G and other initiatives. Truth is that we can't really tell what's efficient for the most part.

My two cents is that the majority of effort should go into stagnant appeals. LL4G used to be able to clear stagnant appeals. That's no longer the case. The same pattern is repeated across most initiatives.

From what I hear from Palestinians, the most effective way to get donations is unfortunately direct, personal contact. That makes the mastodon/bsky bans very damaging. I have plenty thoughts, not sure if I have ideas.

New potential donor groups need to be reached. New people need to post about the survival funds. I don't know how to get there, but I'm sure we can come up with some thoughts collectively. At the very least we can probably find common ground in what isn't working.