Thank you for past help. 
I am in the process of opening my ‘special interest’ Discourse community which will be opened to the general public.
My question is. I would like to moderate every post but will this be too ‘clunky’ for both me and the users? But, I want to avoid people trashing the group where possible.
I appreciate any comments that you may have. Tony
What do you mean by “moderate”?
If you’re talking about requiring staff approval for all new topics – or all posted replies – or both – that’s extra work on your end. Don’t know if you are solo or have a team of staff users. But slow approval could discourage new participants. There are settings to let you allow established users to post without screening, though:
If you mean moderation as in: keeping an eye on things and escalating problematic posts, Discourse’s community moderation features are designed so you don’t have to monitor every post yourself.
(Assuming you’re referring to manual approval on posts)
If your group is discussing perhaps sensitive topics or if you foresee conflicts and want to ensure it doesn’t spread, then you may want to approve every post.
Otherwise, IMO it may feel a little more controlled/micromanaged, especially if the group is supposed to be ‘open’. Is there a reason why you want to do this? Thanks.
I would also say that it depends on the users and the forum. It can hinder the flow of discussion if it takes a long time for replies to become visible. Nevertheless, it may be necessary.
You could also set your forum so that only posts from new users need to be approved before they become visible, or only posts in certain categories, or posts that contain certain words.
You know your community best. Last year, I wrote an overview of the options:
I have a “special interest” forum and would just say that 99.99% of members are very well-behaved. There is virtually nothing to be done except being “librarian” and occasionally categorising, splitting or tagging things more appropriately. There is hardly ever any mal-intent.
The only reason imho you would review posts prior to publication is to prevent spam and you can do this just for new members 1st and maybe second posts (at a stretch). After that let it flow!
Moderation can get more tricky if there is significant and passionate disagreement between members.
Take some precautions but starting a new community instance is hard and you do not want unnecessary friction.
