The site's front/home page is actually pretty simple.
Aside: Simplicity is a key goal of this site. The site aims to avoid the heavy use of graphics both for speed and to keep the site clean. Rather than force many items onto massive web pages the site tries to keep pages uncluttered -- thereby simplifying things.
Think of the front page as having four sections:
• On the left side are a column of menu links and boxes. While some of these boxes may change when you go to different parts of the site, this column provides basic navigation.
• Two boxes near the middle of the page -- Recent content and Recent comments -- show just that: a limited, quick glimpse of what's new on the site. These content/comments boxes do not include data from the forums.
• Below the two boxes are summaries of forum content.
• And finally, front page content. These items are typically submitted as a "story" content type. But any content can be promoted to the front page.
When creating content (of any type) you may see an option for "Publishing options" just above the Preview/Submit button. (If you do not see the "Publishing options", that just means that option is using default publishing options.)
If you do have access to the publishing options, one of the items will be a "Promoted to front page" checkbox. Checking that box and then submitting the content will publish the content -- but the checkbox will also cause the content to go into a moderation queue for an admin to determine whether the content will be published on the front page or not.