Slashcode or phpslash

Has anyone had any experience with slashcode or phpslash?  I'm trying to play around with a slashdot style site, and I'm still figuring out the best way to go about it.  I was curious if somebody here had set up either of these packages- or something similar. 

I'm still wrestling with installing phpslash at the moment (but the website, and appropriate docs, is not available half the time).  I haven't gotten brave enough to try slashcode yet because I'd like to avoid mod_perl if I could.  Are there any other packages out there, that I'm missing, that could do the same job?  I've been going through tons and tons of blog comparisons, but so far nothing jumps out. (no clear standout like punbb was when I was looking for forum software)  Not to mention, most of them, seem to be geared truly for "personal publishing" - I'm going to want many many users to post. 

I suppose, I should be leaning more for the "portal" style packages (like postnuke, mambo, etc), but those are so bloated and full of modules and items I'm never going to need. 

As always, thanks in advance to anyone who can shed some insight, experiences and/or battle scars!

Take Care!