There appears to have definitely been some kind of new ownership issues that allowed Philip to somehow swindle the forums AND THE PICTURE ARCHIVES (and CSW name) away from Mike. Philip screwed him, as far as I can tell...
As for the moderators having to give out their personal info, if you read through those two giant threads over at TFn, you'll see that the issue is much larger than just that. They didn't have a problem with the request so much, as they had a problem with the way that Philip went about the whole thing. He basically wrote their "Mod Squad" and told them to enter their personal information through a non-secure web site, that says it will be public information and could be shared, and if they didn't hand over the personal info, they'd be fired on the spot.
This includes single females, as well as underage individuals. Philip didn't ask people to send HIM the info for his files. That wasn't an option. Only entering it onto this website. Another thing that they found troubling is that many of them had been there for years and had never been asked for this information before. It seems that there's a large "troll" issue over there, and many of the mods don't want these trolls showing up at their doorsteps, since their address could easily be obtained.
Further compounding the situation was that Philip originally wouldn't even tell them why he all of the sudden needed the info after all these years, aside from some vague reference to depositions. Since they're all volunteer moderators, they have little interest in getting sued, or even deposed, for something related to Philip's site.
They all tried to ask Philip some more questions to try to better understand the situation, but he's refused any and all correspondence with them. These people didn't even know who the hell Philip was until last Thursday, when he placed this demand on them. He only has 13 posts at TFn for the history of that board, and none in almost a year. For whatever reason, the other (minority) co-owner of TFn (Josh Griffin, I think) is refusing to chime in on the situation, despite being the guy that most of these mods consider the owner there. Makes you wonder if he disagrees with Philip's heavy handed actions there.
So Philip refuses to speak to any of these people from what I've read, and has fired many of them now, without even listening to their side of the issue, and without so much as a thank you for their services rendered to him and his site over the years. Completely heartless.
I haven't caught up on the threads in the past day, so maybe some things have changed during that time, but I doubt it. Anyway, like I said, it's a lot bigger issue than just asking for their contact info. It's about total lack of respect, communication, and appreciation for his hard-working and dedicated staff at TFn...