Quote Originally Posted by surviva316 View Post
You don't need to log in to do anything. You don't even need to necessarily log in to post. But if the site makes you think that you have to, then I suppose that's the exact same as them having to (perception is everything, etc). I'll definitely keep that in consideration.
Very true. Your goal is to make the experience as simple as possible for the user they may be smart, but they don't come to a site expecting to be challenged by it's UI. For instance, went to your site, couldn't figure out what it was, clicked on How It Works, and was told I had to log in. At that point I said fuck it and left. I went there with the intention of finding out what your site was all about. Imagine how much less patience someone who stumbled across your site would have.

Also, you said you don't need to log in, but I have no idea how someone gets to these pages that pop up the login alerts.

Quote Originally Posted by surviva316 View Post
Okay, so I might lose you here, but I'm trying to make the site as community-run as possible. If I'm going to change the template, I'd like to throw it out to the community in the form of a contest so that the community itself decides the look and feel and so that the community itself reaps the profits, the credit, the thing to put on their resume, etc. I posted a contest to build a template for the site, but then deleted it because I thought it was too optimistic for the site in its current state.
Imo anyone who is half decent at this kind of thing is going to want to get paid. A worthwhile design is more than a couple hours in Photoshop like a lot of people think. Even those bargain bin template sites will be much better than something a volunteer will come up with. Hopefully one of your users will be able to pull it off though.