Zope/Plone - Is it the right solution?

[Rene Pijlman]

kbperry:
>1)  Is Zope/Plone overkill for this type of project?

No, Plone is an excellent CMS for your purpose.

>2)  Why use Plone vs. straight up Zope?

Plone is an out-of-the-box CMS for non-technical editors, Zope is the
underlying infrastructure for developers.

>3)  Is there a way to get over the steep learning curves (that I have
>read about)?

There is a steep learning curve when you need to develop custom content
types, application code, integrate other databases and so on. 

But when all you want is a CMS for a community-type website, Plone is
fine. I recommend this book, it probably contains all you need to know:
http://plone.org/documentation/manual/definitive-guide
(it's available as web pages and on dead tree as well)

-- 
René Pijlman