organize discussion by topic

[Joshua Lipton/Slowtrain]

Question: Want to have a Manila site that manages a large scale discussion.
Also want to have that discussion branch from 5 different discussion boards
for instance (Life, Sports, Movies, Music and Animals). User clicks on the
discuss link on the home page and is brought to a second page that lists the
five major categories that are being discussed. Ideally that same page lists
a message count for each category, a topic count within each category and
the most recent post.

Here's the scheme:
Home Page -> Discussion Page
Discussion Page -> (five categories)
Each Category -> it's own set of discussions

Has anyone done this?
How hard is this to do?
Is anyone willing to do this?
How long would it take you to do this?

Joshua