I was on a message board years ago, and the admin and mods decided to play a prank. They were banning people left and right, one after the other. You posted like one message, and they would get “pissed off”, make up a reason why you broke a rule, and then ban you. I asked in a thread where like 7 people got banned “what the fuck happened here” and got banned for swearing.
Then they invited me in a chat room, and told me it was a prank. All the banned people were there in the chat session, so we sat there for an hour, laughing our asses off as half of the rest of the unbanned members were being overly nice in fear of being banned.
Well most of them figured out it was a prank, but still, all their attitudes changed, it was hilarious.
When all was restored to order, some dude went apeshit and told the whole staff team that the prank sucked and they should all go fuck themselves. Ah, good times, when forums and message boards were da hip place to waste all your time. :D
Now, that’s not what I would do as a mod. But this is what this question reminded me of.