A question for the web-savy techheads...

I have a set of requirements in mind for some web software that I'd like to get my hands on. I'm wondering if such software even exists.

The best short description for the kind of thing I'm looking for would be "a combination between a forum and a Wiki". I'd want a directory-type structure with the ability to contain multiple catigories and subcatigories and each of these catigories would basicly have a forum under it, possibly along with other webpages. Users could add new subcatigories and creating the catigory would also create a forum structure underneith it.

The only thing I'm vaguely aware of that might be able to do this is Zope (www.zope.org) with Plone (www.plone.org), but I haven't looked into them deeply enough.

I'm not familiar with any pre-packaged solutions that meet your specific requirements, though no doubt, someone out there has developed something close that can be customized. You might try searching sourceforge.net or similar open-source communities. You mentioned zope, but if memory serves, zope is really more of a development platform/application server on which you could potentially build applications.

If you don't find a pre-packaged solution, then it really sounds like you would need a data modeler/database developer to help you define an underlying schema and a software architect/engineer to help translate your "business" rules and use-case scenarios into a functional Web app.

Not much help, I know, but sounds like a cool idea.