Your implementation input/feedback for my political site

[MaineI30]

Hi,

I'm thinking of changing Political Monkey a bit to make it more lively... it's been dead lately, and I have some ideas on how to spice it up, but I'm a bit shy on the implementation side....

Here's my idea:

1. You have an upper part of the home page theme/template (easily updatable) where the administrator can place links of latest news stories, etc. from OUTSIDE news sources .. a "latest news" section.. (easy part)

2. A place where users can submit "tips" -- rumours, whatever -- I suppose to a certain forum that is moderated. A moderator chooses whether to post it based on user credibility, verifiability, etc. etc. If a "tip" makes it to "posting", then the user is awarded points AND a link to the new rumor thread (which could just be a thread inside a forum) is placed on the home page, perhaps in the middle part of the page. Like "latest/hottest rumours" frame/section.

3. You have a "points" system where the user title / community status changes based on POINTS AWARDED (for use in #2,) not posts made;

I am wondering what all of your thoughts would be, if this would be something easy to do with VBulletin/VBPortal. Actually, I know the answer is yes, but I'm more asking how you guys think would be best to set it up from a hack/template/style perspective.

I sense that with some playing around of the templates I could make this work, but I don't know a ton about customization, and I want it to be easy to manage, so I wanted to get tips from all of you.

Thank you in advance.

In a nutshell, I'm trying to create a sortof .. fu*ked company meets drudge report meets politics.com.

thanks again