@issue 1:
Just sort posts by user role in Views. No hacks, you just set up a filter.

@issue 2:
Have you tried the Flag module?  I like to set up an Up/Down or an Offensive flag, then with Flag Actions, you can make content or comments unpublish or be promoted when certain count thresholds are reached.

@issue5:
Yeah, I haven't found a text editor that doesn't cause major problems with other parts of my sites.  That area needs work.

Agreed about the add'l technical overhead.

As a Drupal newb, I did an install from Bluehost's Fantastico (now they provide it), but it came without an update.php.  That is, needless to say, bunk.

Here's a good article comparing the two.

This is great project, and your phase divisions make a lot of sense.

I'd definitely be willing to help out (I'm an intermediate Drupal developer who only dabbles in the php side); shoot me an email.

I agree that a Drupal-based, pre-configured, community blog site could be pretty easily created and provided for download customization.

However, if we're talking about a new fee model to pay for a blogosphere hosting service that's partially based on ad revenue, you're going to need some blogs that actually have ad revenue.

Thats good to hear and I look forward to seeing the new site. According to the Rails site it should it should be ready to go in 15 minutes, and if so that will definitely be sooner than I think=).

I take it this will be a MyDD-only platform? (nothing wrong with that) Or are you thinking about opening it up somewhat?

But now that we've had a teachable moment...

It would probably take some bigger blogs (cough MyDD cough) getting behind the project for it to happen.

Blogger works poorly and Wordpress works well for a group blog.  For a community blog where  you need user diaries, rec lists, etc., you need the more varied levels of user access and content types that you get from a full CMS like Drupal or Joomla.  They're free, but they require some work to learn.

Since Wordpress is open source, maybe someone has a modification that allows for these features, but I haven't seen them yet.

I think we have to identify what's really being paid for.

Free blogging is widely available.  Between Wordpress and Blogger, it's really easy to get a generic blog up and running inside of an hour.

Advanced blogging software from Wordpress, Drupal, etc. is freely available and freely maintained with regular security releases.  All you need is 1) a hosting service, and 2) expertise.

IMO, those are the two things you pay for -- a regular fee for hosting (~$7/mo) and a one-time fee for setup ($100 up front, with no customization?  the marginal cost of another blog using the same install has got to be small).

It would seem reasonable to include built-in advertising with the setup, with a percentage going back to host.  There should be an option to run a no-ads site -- you run no ads or, if you display ads, then you have to also display the hosts ad.  Sites that opt-out of advertising probably wouldn't make much from it anyway, and forced advertising might turn off a lot of people.

Be careful with the easy installation features of your hosting service, especially if it's Fantastico (see this discussion).  You're probably better off downloading the latest version from drupal.org and installing it yourself.

Here are some additional contributed modules that you might want to consider:

Fivestar (rate posts and comments)
Pingback or Trackback (if you want those features)
Akismet or Mollom (instead of Captcha -- I can't stand Captcha!)

I agree with Metadata the Views & CCK can be daunting, but once you 'get it' those modules are very powerful for controling how your content is created and displayed.  I'd say it's worth the time investment.

No way!  Try SimpleMenu.  Looks pretty good out of the box...

But your point is generally true.

Drupal Core's php is fine, but I'd agree that some contributed modules are a nasty mess.  However, since you can get MyDD style functionality out of core modules, this isn't really an issue.  Plus Drupal lets you put together very advanced website without ever touching php.  Remember that a lot of these blogs won't have any 'real' site development, just theming.

As far as php vs java speed...this is a religious discussion.  I'd agree Java is faster (potentially, depending, etc.) but 50x is a fake number.  Maybe it matters for DailyKos, but for 90% of the progressive blogs, no.  Easy usability and support for non-experts is key.

Dupal has contributed modules to import content from  csv files one can get from database exports from Mambo (of which Soapbox is a branch I believe?), though I've never tried it.

A new Drupal focus has been on creating download profiles that are preconfigured for certain uses.  I don't see one that comes for MyDD/DailyKos style multiuser blogging, but that wouldn't be a big project to set up.  If a developer were to set up that package, so all an individual site owner needed to do was download, install, & style the site, it would go a long way to making Drupal less daunting.

I don't know about SEIU's opinion, but adding physicians and pharmacists to the mix sounds great to me!  The professional vs. plebes "association"/union divide is problematic as it divides those with more power against those with less.

And doctors could seriously use a union given the hours they're expected to work.

I'm feeling an old CIO ditty about "one big union" coming on...

"Most" of SEIU's growth?  Really?  So there wasn't a Justice for Janitors campaign or the security guards campaign or the home healthcare workers organizing?  I call bs.

SEIU does flip resource investment from the traditional 10 union service reps to 1 organizer, to 10 organizers and 1 rep.  The idea is that the union's biggest 'service' is to have sufficient market share to negotiate a good contract.

But it's true, they're less good about having someone available to explain how your heath care benefits work.  It sucks that you feel you're part of a "dues unit," but have you tried to get involved in the workplace committee or the contract negotiation committee?  If there's masses of disaffected at your workplace/local it should be easy to get elected...