Thanks, so the site is done using a combination of custom css changes and a few key plugins listed just here:
- Topic List Previews for the thumbnails on the lists
- Sidebar Blocks (which I wrote and maintain, there are some features on my site that aren’t yet merged in the master branch of the plugin yet)
- and then some css styling to adjust the column sizes, change the fonts, colors etc
The postings: I accept postings from users, since this is a community blog, but new posts get moderated. There is a setting for moderating first posts from users called approve new topics unless trust level. I set this to a high number. If you want to disable completely, you could hide the New Topic button for certain user levels.