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Modding is a mostly thankless job. For every single letter of thanks you get, there are five or more complaints and bug reports begging for a response. This is also the case with modders in Blizzard's World of Warcraft, those intrepid programmers who infuse everyone's standard UI with some extra functionality, and it's also the cause of modding burnout amongst many of them.
Greg Tito has an excellent article up on the subject, talking about the lives behind modders and the things other people do to frustrate them out of doing the very thing that made them famous in the first place. For instance, Gello has had to deal with extremely hostile members of the community who turned the pastime into something terrifying altogether.
The tale starts simply enough, with a request for a German localization of Recap. After completing it, however, other members of the community wanted another of Gello's mods to undergo translation in French, something that Gello himself felt he wasn't going to get any benefit from. After stating that they'd be better served if they translated it themselves, the events turned ugly:
"When I stood by my position (probably not in the nicest terms), they continued in earnest. I got an email with an attachment I thought was safe and apparently it wasn't." The modern computer nightmare had come true for Gello. "I basically abandoned the email address, formatted my pc, ditched the mod and didn't look back."
Before you think about telling someone they suck at what they do, or simply have a ton of negativity you want to let out without any reason for doing so, think twice before doing it. There are people behind those mods you love or hate, and they deserve your respect too.
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