AI moderation for your community, with the AI you already use

A community needs someone awake when a scammer posts at 3 a.m. Since Barside 1.39, a Space owner can hand that watch to AI moderation: the AI you already connected for the assistant checks new messages from members, reports anything that breaks the built-in rules or your own, and, if you choose, removes the clear cases. It runs in your Barside, with your key, and every member sees a note that it is on.

Barside has no AI of its own. AI moderation uses Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or OpenRouter through Settings → AI, the same connection the Space helper uses to answer questions. This guide covers turning it on, what is checked, the two actions, cost, and the human tools it works next to. For a tour of Spaces itself, read team chat and paid communities.

What AI moderation checks

Every new chat message from a member, as text, and polls. Messages that hold only an attachment are skipped, and so are:

• messages from you, from moderators and from the Space helper;
• messages sent before you turned AI moderation on;
• messages that waited more than a day because your Barside was closed, which are left to people.

A message that a member edits is checked again. Each message is checked against six categories:

Member text goes to the AI as data to judge, never as instructions, and without names or user IDs. The AI must answer in a strict format; an answer Barside cannot read allows the whole batch and adds a line to the log, and a verdict with an unknown category allows the message. A misread answer never removes a message.

Turn it on in Manage Space

1. Connect an AI in Settings → AI if you have not yet. The AI assistant guide shows the one-click buttons for Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini and OpenRouter.
2. Open your Space, choose Manage Space, then AI moderation. Only the owner sees this card.
3. Choose What to do: Report to moderators (the default) or Remove clear violations and report the rest.
4. Add Your rules if you have any, up to 2,000 characters, in plain words: "For example: No selling. Keep to gardening."
5. Press Save AI moderation. Barside says "AI moderation is on for this Space."

From that moment, every member sees "Messages here are checked by the owner's AI for rule-breaking." under the message box (under the read-only line, if the Space is read-only). The card shows how many messages were checked and a calm notice if something is wrong, such as "Barside could not check new messages" with the reason and "It tries again in a minute."

Report, or remove the clear cases

Report to moderators is the default and the gentle choice. Every problem the AI finds becomes a report under Manage Space → Reports to review, with the category and the AI's reason, next to the reports members send with Report post. A moderator reads it and chooses Mark resolved or Remove post. Nothing is removed until a person decides.

Remove clear violations and report the rest adds one automatic step for the clear cases. Before a message is removed, Barside asks the AI about it a second time, on its own, so no other message in the batch can sway the verdict. A removed message is cleared for everyone, like a post a moderator removes, and cannot be brought back. Unclear cases still go to Reports to review. At most 30 messages an hour are removed; anything beyond that is reported instead.

Both choices keep a log. Recent decisions, under the card, shows the last 50: the time, the verdict, the category, the author and the reason, so you can see how your rules land and adjust the wording.

What it costs, and how Barside keeps it small

Your AI company bills each check, not Barside. To keep the bill small:

• Messages go to the AI in batches of at most 20, every 20 seconds. A busy Space gets up to three batches a round.
• At most 120 AI calls an hour.
• Nothing is sent when there is nothing new.
• Reports from the AI use their own path, so they never use up the 10 reports an hour a person may send.
• A report that fails to send for a moment is sent again later without asking the AI again.

What a check costs depends on the model you chose in Settings → AI and on your AI company's prices; its usage page shows what moderation used.

Where it runs, and where it stops

AI moderation runs in your Barside, on your computer, only while the app is open and you are signed in, like the Space helper. It never runs on Barside's servers, and your AI key stays with you. Turning it on sets a flag on the Space so every member sees the note; turning it off anywhere, for example on another computer, stops the checks everywhere. If it is on for the Space but your current computer is not the one checking, the card says so: messages are checked only where it is turned on.

Its settings and its log are stored encrypted on your computer, outside your library and your backups.

Human tools that work next to it

AI moderation is one tool among several in Manage Space, and the others need no AI:

• Slow mode. Owners and moderators make members wait between posts, from 5 seconds to 1 hour. Owners and moderators are not limited, and the Space heading shows "Slow mode" with the wait.
• Who can post? The owner can make a Space read-only: Only owners and moderators post, while members still read, react, vote in polls and open files. Announcements and courses use this.
• A flood guard, always on: a member who sends more than 5 messages in 10 seconds waits a minute, and Barside keeps what they typed.
• Reports from members, Remove post, Remove member and blocking.
• Who can pin messages? and the switches for the member count and the members list.

A good setup for a paid community: the share link with join requests so you approve who comes in, AI moderation reporting to moderators, slow mode at 10 seconds on launch day, and the Space helper answering the questions the welcome note already covers.

Privacy

Members' messages go to the AI company you connected, in batches, as text to judge, without names or IDs, and that company's data policy applies. Barside's own servers never see the checks. Members are told while AI moderation is on. The settings, the rules you wrote and the log of decisions are stored encrypted on the owner's computer, outside backups. Read Spaces and your data and the AI you connect and your data.

Works well with