My question is whether or not it's a good idea to use a name that Cal Berkeley and Intel (among a few others) are already using and have web pages about. So that's why I left the actual use of the app indeterminate.

To answer your question, though:

1. Start with a Wiki, with user notification and reminder features. Topic pages are straight HTML, with some useful shortcuts when submitting.
2. Remove CamelCaseLinks and allow topic names of any kind.
3. When topic content contains a date/time in ISO format (e.g., 2004-01-25 15:00:00), make that an automatic link to a calendar. Put return links on the calendar to each topic which has an ISO date in that range.
4. Douse the whole thing in a barrel of topic namespaces, one per user group. Every topic page/document is then owned by a single group, and each group has its own [link|http://www.endue.org/motecal.gif|Calendar]. All users have their own Private group-of-one, and there's a default Public group. If you're in a group, you can view/edit/etc those topics, as well as "publish" them to other groups (actually, send a key to the moderators of that other group so they can pull it (or reject it) instead of having it pushed onto them; for a Private group, the single user is the moderator).
5. Group-owned uploads. Plus, hopefully a bit of file magic and "convert to HTML" fun. But that's not essential to the concept.

There's more--that's just what I've written in the last 4 days (finishing up the namespace stuff right now). Python is SO fun.