This sounds like a great idea. Torq, you should have a think about adding another level of detail to the execution of it. I guess the question that occurs to me is, do the mappers also do the world building or is some sort of basic (or advanced) worldbuilding done first?
I reckon it would take a bit of a group think there to decide how to tackle it. You need some sort of world mapped out first. You must decide on some basic things like climate & geography as well as the sort of general styles that each area would have. You cant have big cities in one spot and then this points of light approach for all the area around it.
I would also suggest that the whole effort be focused on some smallish area of the world so that you get at least one place with some coherent, in depth mapping going on. Thats like the Cormyr area of Forgotten Realms that had a lot more detail than the rest when it started. You could work with that and fit RPGs into it easily therefore it would get traction by other users to get more into it.
Particularly for the large scale maps you need some very common software to do it. Possibly even general software. I would suggest any bitmap editor and use RobA's style of using B&W maps with cloud filters / fractal noise to raise the detail and fill in the areas with more detail as the scale gets lower.
Another hot tip I have learned from experience is that you need to map in topo - i.e. straight down mode. You cant use the perspective style mountains like 'M's to do it unless your prepared to completely loose one map when zooming into higher scale. Also for the same reasons, its easier if you go for a realistic style of map rather than say an Atlas style like HandsomeRobs. Both look nice and the latter is probably easier to read but if you want to use scaled down version of small scale maps in the large scale maps then they just wont fit. Otherwise you have to decide on which sets of fixed scale to run with and map them all separately.
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