Emphasis on individual online space, so not a forum/federated platform, more like maybe a blog or portfolio or anything else more experimental. Suppose the full gamut of tech familiarity from unfamiliar to familiar.
Original Title:
What advice and cautionary tales would you give on setting up one’s own individual online space with today’s tools?
I’d caution against this - my gut reaction is that they’d also block people who happen to speak somewhat “unnaturally”, like non-native speakers, neurodivergent folks and non-america/europeans.
Honestly, unless you expect to run at the scale of something like a big Mastodon server or get really popular, manually approving comments with a simple home-rolled capcha (that bots won’t recognise) should be enough.