Comment by pavel_lishin
7 months ago
> as a forum moderator you are known, and you are a target
I want to emphasize just how true this is, in case anyone thinks this is hyperbole.
I managed a pissant VBulletin forum, and moderated a pretty small subreddit. The former got me woken up at 2, 3, 4am with phone calls because someone got banned and was upset about it. The latter got me death threats from someone who lived in my neighborhood, knew approximately where I lived, and knew my full name. (Would they have gone beyond the tough-guy-words-online stage? Who knows. I didn't bother waiting to find out, and resigned as moderator immediately and publicly.)
100%
I used to run a moderately sized forum for a few years. Death threats, legal threats, had faeces mailed to my house, someone found out where I worked and started making harrasing calls/turning up to the office.
I don't run a forum no more. For what I feel are obvious reasons.
I, too, can confirm all this. Way back in the day, I hosted a largish forum and moderated it. It grew to be a pain to moderate, and it became costly to run as well, in short, it was no longer fun like it was initially, and I walked away from it.
> I managed a pissant VBulletin forum, and ... got me woken up at 2, 3, 4am with phone calls because someone got banned and was upset about it.
I home-hosted a minecraft server and was repeatedly DDoS'd. Don't underestimate disgruntled 10yo's.
Facts: my friend ran a Minecraft server, and his hosting provider once told him it was the most DDoS'd server in the entire datacenter.
I used to be a moderator for the french forum OP mention in his post and helped maintain the previous website. I threw the towel long before they migrated to microcosm. I didn't even ask to be that moderator but ended up somehow when other "hired members" when they themselves tried to distance themselves from the moderation. It is so thankless. Some trolls were constantly making thread derails, were repeatedly banned but kept creating new accounts, joining other forums I was a simple member to stalk me and get more information in order to publish stuff about me or my family online.