How do you moderate user content on a small community site?

Start with reporting and a basic admin queue. Let people flag content, then give moderators a way to review it, remove it, and ban accounts when needed.

That won't catch everything, and the workload can grow with the community. But it gives you a straightforward starting point without trying to automate every decision on day one.

A moderation API could help screen submissions before they reach the site or flag them for review. There are free moderation endpoints worth looking at, so you don't necessarily need an enterprise contract just to try automated classification.

Test the categories and results against the kind of content your site expects. You still need to decide what happens when something is flagged and who handles mistakes.

You could also build a filter around a language model instead of buying a dedicated moderation service. That gives you more control over the rules, but you'd have to build and maintain the system yourself. Compare the running costs and test how well it catches the content you care about before relying on it.

Spam is only part of the question. Running a community also means deciding what is allowed, responding to reports, and keeping up with moderation over time. There can be legal responsibilities too, depending on where you operate and what the site hosts. Factor that into the project before opening submissions.

People haven't given up on user contributions. The tradeoff is that even a small comment section needs attention, and some site owners would rather turn comments off than take on that work.