Trying MyChingo 

Mobs  

Seven or eight years ago I put up a site consisting of a number of message boards as an experiment to provide a space for message board operators to offload comments they didn't want on their own sites for whatever reason -- off-topic threads, personal spats. I called it "Step Outside" and promoted it a little.

Having moderated forum sites, I thought it would be a valuable service, because I often sensed that commenters who were thwarted from posting on a particular site would calm down and cool off if they could just have their say, somewhere, didn't matter where.

A few forum sites tried it, directing off-topic and otherwise out-of-bounds posters to my boards, but my experiment only lasted a week before I became disgusted with it and tore it down. Turns out, in hosting a place having the mission of publishing unacceptable comments, I'd attracted the worst element, and the talk quickly turned to topics that made me shiver with loathing for humanity. I'd started a mob and you can't control mobs.

Of course I was associated with the hate, more than associated with it. I'd suggested the direction, published the site, and was responsible (or at least felt responsible) for the result, no matter how far afield from the intended purpose the content had drifted.