Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on either of those points.
You are not wrong. According to
mexxer-2 post from 2016, a portion of the 25% of the bitcoin the forum generated through ads was intended for mod payments according to a formula. If the formula is correct, the most active moderators earned 0.3% or more per month, each. This was confirmed by Quickseller further down in the thread.
As far as I can tell, the percentage is now higher than 25%. The ad auctions are not bringing in much bitcoin right now and the forum has grown enough to need a lot of mods. My guess is that the mods get nearly all of the forum ad revenue and hosting is paid for out of the forum’s reserves.