Research on multi user blog platforms

Yesterday I did a ton of research.

One of my 'back burner' projects is to set up a multi blog for a bunch of hardcore outdoorsmen. yesterday I did a long power search on multiple blog systems. I found at least three promising paths:

1. Wordpress Multi user or wpmu -
   • The forums for WPMU, in a stickied post, indicates that it is not for tha faint of heart. Undeterred, I still think I could hack it, because I am tenacious and have a good deal of experience setting up php scripts.
   • Aside from the WPMU forums and project site, there is a great resource site at http://wpmudev.org/ with themes, and plugins galore.
2. Lyceum - Ibiblio's work with wpmu, packaging it in an 'enterprise ready' format. It is just as easy as Wordpress to install. It uses directories instead of subdomains. Most plugins should work with Lyceum. Not as much activity as WPMU in the forum threads, but all the threads have replies of some sort.
3. Elgg - an open source social networking project. Elgg looks interesting. It's got the whole Web 2.0 thing going on. Blogging, (of course) friends networks, podcasting, community groups. It is only at version 0.9.1 now, but it's getting a refactoring and will go 1.0 with all kindsa craazy new features this summer.

I think Joomla might also be a possibility and since I am working on a Joomla site already I will have to look into it.

So, as I get time, I will delve into these platforms a little more and see if any of them will work for my purposes.