This one is a little different so I’m making a post on it. It is more of a proof of concept, testing kind of site. AiChan is running off wordpress instead of typical image board software. With some modification using only off the shelf plugins, it has been setup with front end anonymous posting and anon commenting. I would say some of the benefits to using wordpress is that:
1. Easy to install for noobs
2. Can easily force post moderation before posts go live to prevent spam.
3. Email notification of a new post/comment to help with moderation
4. Lots of options for optimization – easy to use a CDN for images

AiChan is running on a $10/mo VPS.
The following plugins are needed:
– Elementor Pro for the posts block with pagination. (There are tons of alternatives with posts blocks and pagination – most are not free)
– USP Pro – this is a paid plugin but allows the front end posting form. The free version will allow for 1 form, but multiple boards requires Pro
– Akismet – filters comment spam
– DCO Comment Attachment – allows images to be added in post comments
Optional:
– Display Featured Image In Post List – helps with moderation – allows you to see image when approving posts in the wordpress backend.
– Autoremove Attachments – when a post is deleted, it will clean up the images from the media library.
– Advanced Comment Form – lets you remove some of the irrelevant text on the comment form
– WPMail SMTP – allows email notification of new posts/comments
– EWWW Image Optimizer – creates webp versions of pictures and hosts them on a CDN
– Astra Theme works well to pick a template/starting point

Site removed 2-11-24 – up for 2 months and only 1 non-spam post.. nice…