I don't know the answer to any of your questions. But I whuffle you.

Thank you Specklet! *whuffleback*

Dodgy did the set-up, and actually hacked a lot of changes and seanyboy has made further changes to the original install. I really know nothing at all about under the hood, especially in terms of the server, etc. Aside from the css, I can just sort of make out what's going on in the php pages... at least enough not to screw things up when I'm uploading changes. So, if those two don't see this, go ahead and email them to let them know you are asking.

You should also talk to dabitch, who has quite a lot of experience in setting up and dealing with community sites, and has recently started rocking Drupal. However, I must say that there's definitely a lot to learn if you don't have programming experience (or even if you do, probably). Dabs set me up a little play area on her server so I could mess around with Drupal a bit, since I was curious... and, wowzer - I got pretty intimidated by just the basic stuff. I intend to go back and apply some concentration, but it's definitely not an easy-peasey thing.

However, you do really want to start with something robust and ongoing enough* to handle a vibrant site if it grows up that way, because migrating to another CMS later will be a nightmare. (* in terms of development, and the number of people contributing to it in an open source situation, if you are using open source.)

I think one person can mod it at first (see Matt, obviously, for an example of that), especially since all members will be in the same time zone, and especially if you have the sort of job that allows you enough freedom to keep an eye on things... but if you get a lot of members, or even if you just get a few who want to troll or have personal problems that come out on the site, it can be wearing. Trusted, light-handed moderators are solid gold, I think.

There's a lot more that can be said about moderators... but obviously, they can totally make or break things. It's not really that surprising that Matt took so long to add mods, but it must have become incredibly onerous for him to deal with the whole site on his own for so long.

also... *whuffles*!

I'm using Drupal on the community site for my neighborhood and I hate its guts. I'm used to MT and Wordpress. I don't know of any community sites that use Wordpress, nor am I sure if there are enough robust plugins to tweak it, but if I could swing a C-site on Wordpress I'd do it.

Thanks for the direction, taz. You're wonderwhuffleful.

We run Gapers Block on MT, and the *ists and MetBlogs are on MT, too. I know of no city blogs running on Wordpress.

Is the idea basically to have a group blog with member registration? You might look into Expression Engine.

Yeah, me3dia, thats the basic idea, with further intent being to post interesting links to things that Clevelanders might find of importance. More like MeFi than the *ists. Less, journalistic, if you get my drift. I'll look at Expression Engine, thanks!

Someone started a community for my neighborhood. It is the best place to go for local news (really local, as in, why were the police on that block a few days ago, or what is that strange smell). Astorians.com

As mentioned, we use a hacked up version of b2evo.

b2evo is not the best code base I've ever seen & it can be resource hungry but it's workable. You need programming skills and a basic knowledge of PHP to "get it"
I suspect that taz has the potential to be an awesome coder so that "I can just sort of make out what's happening in the PHP" line may not apply to everyone.
If you want a copy of the metachat code base, email me and I'll sort you out with a copy. You'll need access to hosting with MySQL and PHP for it to work.

Also, throw any questions you have my way. I'll do my best to answer them.

Finally ... If I were looking at creating a community website right now, I'd definitely give elgg a trial.

But to answer your questions...

Can one man do it?
Yep.

Can one man who only has web design skills do it?
Maybe. Dunno.

Y'all use b2e, right?
Yep

How hard was initial set-up?
Can one man mod it [at least initially]?
Ask dodgy - I think it was pretty tough. The skills and changes that made metachat into metachat were honed over viewropa and then metachat. I can take what's here and set it up quite quickly, but I don't know 100% what's been added from the base b2evo install.

I think me3dia runs a city-wide site in Chicago... I used to have it bookmarked but seem to have lost it.

Psssst, BoPo, scroll up.

*waggles eyebrows upwards*

Seconding ExpressionEngine. It has most of the basic features you'd need for a MetaFilter-type site out of the box: members can self register, add posts, make comments, edit their profiles, etc. The documentation is pretty thorough and the forums are helpful.