Slashdot of all places basically solved the moderation problem, with random moderators selected from the pool of "know users" and then others selected to meta moderate.
I don't remember slashdot moderation being particularly good. Innovative yes, but not good. I got to be a moderator multiple times while I was a teen. I'm sure I didn't make good decisions.
It worked surprisingly well long into "popularity" - at least for the purposes of getting spam removed and corralling flame bait away.
For a "user-run" site it was pretty advanced at the time - you could choose your level to view at (5 was quick summary of the highlights, -1 if you wanted flamewars about NetBSD), stories were curated enough to prevent slop (at least at the beginning), and metamoderating removed the biggest abuses.
