[qntm]

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_ain%27t_gonna_need_it

But there's a fine balance to strike here. There's a massive spectrum of solutions to the problem of "Prevent the site from being swamped with spam and other inappropriate comments". Just because it isn't a problem now, because you have no users, doesn't mean it isn't going to be an immediate problem as soon as you start acquiring them. And just because there's an arbitrary upper limit of the complexity of those solutions doesn't mean that there's no point in addressing the problem at all right now.

"Keep V1 as your minimum viable product" is the advice. And the V1 solution could be as simple as "have an emergency global off-switch for the commenting system".

[rbranson]

Lack of any kind of arbitration mechanism can spell the death of a site like this. There's definitely a balancing act.