Modding doesn't actually take a lot of work if you're not being heavy-handed about it (especially when the community is small). The Reddit way isn't the only way.

The original point of the upvote/downvote system of Reddit was to let users moderate the site themselves without needing a bunch of mods to constantly step in. (The original terms were actually upmod/downmod.) There are problems with that on a larger scale (bots, raids, etc.), but in smaller communities it's fine as long as you're fine with the basic idea of the setup.