The authentication process was the hardest. When making POST requests to the Next.js server for things like stack voting and AMA question, the server needed some kind of implementation that checks if the current request is from a valid member. The current approach is very simple and needs to be replaced with a more robust one.
I haven't thought of that before. AFAIR, I got into web and theme development around 2014, so it's eight years at the time of writing this reply.
When the button is clicked, it sends a request with some Ghost post and member-related parameters to a custom Next.js server. The server then maps the post and member IDs and saves them to a Firestore database. To display them on the frontend, the theme also sends a GET request to the custom server and receives back some data containing member names and avatars.
I try to follow people on Twitter who design and build, and my Twitter feed helps me explore some great design. I also like browsing blog/magazine/editorial design on Siteinspire and Awwwards. For specific element design inspiration, Dribbble is where I usually go. Godly is also a gold mine for amazing design inspiration.
Ghost. The moodboard content, stacks, AMA questions are all regular posts behind the scene. Ghost is very powerful, and the theme development is so customizable, so one can do almost anything with it.
Ghost again. It has built-in members function. I used a custom server to map the posts and members, and saved them to a Firestore database. All member data is from Ghost members.
I didn't want the AMA section be empty by default. Sodbileg Bearded Gansukh and Sodbileg Cameraman Gansukh are my accounts I've used for testing the members feature.