Did a fresh install not working yay after I reinstalled redis server not following the guide on nodebb working great. Trying to remove nodejs+npm is messed up since the fresh install won't work with the current installation (npm install). I give up, errors here errors there, fuck.. thanks for the help given... I think..

This might be just me, but I wouldn't be loading that under root directory. Create a new user and use that for nodebb location under home location. As to nodebb not showing up. What does your nodebb config, and nginx config look like? I don't know what you mean by debian comes with nginx already. Sure might be in the repo but shouldn't come installed, Unless a script you ran installed it for you.

I believe @Nicolas has a number of gamification plugins that are quite helpful For the second question, you'll want to create or customise an existing theme so that the topic layout is vertical.