i don't get it either, but the gamer in me is compelled to comment so i reach level 10

It's kind of motivating. I aspire to be a legal ten someday. Plus religion has large books that take forever to read.

I got to a level 4 then it dropped to a 3.5 again. What's up with that? Did I answer something incorrectly?

At level ten you get a toaster.

Seems to weed out trolls.

It's how you know how hardcore their atheism is. Once you reach level seven, you gain a bonus to mana regeneration for eating babies.

I think it's a mechanism to get people to reply and keep the conversation going.

It would be too much work for trolls or people that are just looking for hook-ups to earn the points. It weeds those out.

I agree, I'm not entirely sure as to why there are levels. If I want to know how active a member is, then why not just show "last signed in was..." and "last post submitted was..." on their profile or under their photo.

Haha, tithing... good idea The goal with levels is to let people know which members are more active so that as we add more dating functionality, we don't have to resort to charging memberships as a way to authenticate users (like most dating sites do). Also, we give some perks and prizes to members as they reach different levels (first one comes next week).