Hi, I know, I'm a pain in the butt.
I've been reading about global categories on the forum (tag clouds, all that fun). I sorta get how they work and what they are.
But I need kind of the opposite. Here's the scenario:
I want there to be common categories across all new blogs that users make. Specifically, there's two parent categories I want to show up in every new install, and a bunch of subcategories in one of the parents.
So, for all new blogs, the category "town-related" should show up, and for that person, they will, or we will, add the town the blogger will commonly (almost exclusively) be writing about (and probably make it default). Also, another category, say "farm-related" parent category will have some preset subcategories...for argument's sake, "Pigs", "Chickens", and "Horses". (No, those aren't the real categories/subcategories.)
Then, from the main blog, I plan to RSS-gather everything which uses the "town-related" category on one page, and iterate everything "farm-related" on a second page, making it easy for readers to see everything in each category without viewing all the blogs. The front page may just RSS everything together but just titles and a very short exerpt, if that. Not sure. But I know I want a "town-related" and a "farm-related" field.