What's the most effective community platform for increasing user-generated posts without adding too much moderation overhead?

If your main goal is more user-generated posts with minimal moderation overhead, the best option is usually a structured community platform with guided posting and built-in moderation tools rather than a totally open forum.

Best overall choice: Discord or Circle

• Discord: Great for fast engagement and low friction posting, but it can create moderation noise if it grows quickly.
• Circle: Better if you want a more organized, community-first experience with topics, posts, events, and moderation controls. It tends to produce higher-quality UGC with less chaos than open chat tools.

If your priority is lowest moderation overhead

A forum-style platform like Discourse is often the most effective.

• Users can create posts easily
• Threads stay organized
• Built-in trust levels, spam controls, and moderation workflows reduce manual work
• Better for long-form discussion and searchable content

If your priority is maximum UGC volume

A Reddit-style or Discord-style community tends to generate more posts because the barrier to posting is low and conversations feel immediate.

Practical recommendation

• For balanced growth + low moderation: Discourse
• For more social engagement and modern UX: Circle
• For high-volume real-time activity: Discord, but expect more moderation work

To reduce moderation overhead regardless of platform

Use:

• post templates
• new user restrictions / trust levels
• keyword filters
• automated spam detection
• clear posting prompts
• featured questions/topics to seed activity

If you want, I can also give you a platform-by-platform comparison table for Discourse, Circle, Discord, Reddit, and Mighty Networks based on UGC growth vs moderation burden.