Okay, I stayed up and put a demo together to try to explain my idea. Here's what you need to get your head wrapped around. What I am going to demo for you is a client/server application. The vBulletin site (in this case autopia.org) is the client where the data is displayed, and the server application (in this case my old Guide to Detailing site) is where the data is maintained. Any number of vBulletin sites could install the plug-in application and have all of the same data displayed in a manner that looks like the local community. In other words, the forum owner is in full control of the look and feel, and the server application simply provides the data.
Okay, so here is the test page:
http://autopia.org/forum/gtd/index.php
As you can see, I'm displaying all of my old Guide to Detailing articles. The data appears to be local on autopia.org, but it's not. All of the data inside the boxes is coming from
Guide To Detailing (I'm in the process of revamping this site). You also see advertising around the content. This is to show that the vBulletin site owner can put advertising or other content around the data that is being served to them.
The reason I decided to use the detailing guide as a demo is because the article pages from my old program already have a rating system (top of article page) and a commenting system (bottom of article page). This would be important for a detailer directory, because you want your community clients to rate you and leave comments (think Yelp!).
I created a way for members of multiple communities to rate and leave comments in a secure way (so I don't have access to a vBulletin community's member database and they don't have access to my database).
Okay, where all of this goes now is up to you guys. I can't develop a "Community Detailer" database without you guys and it can't be 100% free. There are over 700 vBulletin automotive communities (I have a database of all of them!) and most of them charge for advertising. A detailer database constitutes advertising. If you could pay a few bucks a year to have your listing on the automotive communities of your choice, would you?