What happened to Phillyblog? A rival, Philadelphia Speaks and other online forums

Five years ago yesterday, Wil Reynolds was named the executive director of the nonprofit that operated Phillyblog, the widely popular online discussion forum.

Wil Reynolds

But rather than celebrating a milestone at the head of the most popular Web forum in Philadelphia, Phillyblog.com was rather suddenly closed in July, Reynolds is trumpeting a new forum, a third has risen from the ashes and questions surround it all, except, Reynolds says, the importance of a place for like-minded Philadelphians to meet online.

“When you have a city of neighborhoods, it’s hard to find one site that covers that phenomenon,” says Reynolds, who founded Northern Liberties design firm Seer Interactive in 2002, the same year Phillyblog first hit the Web. “We figured we’d create that around a kind of interaction, instead of the one-to-many platform of a blog.”

The 2,000 members shared links, discussed news, offered opinion and, in their own way, added to Philadelphia’s landscape of hyper-localized content, but that all ended earlier this summer.

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Friday Tech Links: Domelights has been taken down for now, reshaping Philly and More

In which we link out to the tech news from Philly and elsewhere (when it matters) that slips through the cracks and make it way fun. See others here.

It was often a place for trivial discussions of various, loosely-tethered topics from the perspective of largely anonymous vistors who often identifited themselves as Philadelphia police officers, their family members and supporters.

But Domelights, the public yet registration-required online community forum targeted for Philadelphia police, also became known for viscous, ugly and arguably racist, misogynistic and homophobic comment threads. Facing a law suit from a black officers group, the site — which is run independently of the city’s police force — was taken down.

At time of writing, the site now features only a purple background with a single, small message: “Until further notice, all Domelights.com services (i.e. forums, galleries, blogs) have been suspended. Thank you. McQ.”

McQ, of course, is an unindentifed Philadelphia police sergeant at the center of the controversy, which follows a rash of allegations of racism against general police institutions. After these allegations, the city took swift action against the relatively low traffic site, denying access to the site on city and police computers, as the Inquirer reports.

The Inquirer also reports that Rochelle Bilal, the leader of the black police group — which is called the Guardian Civic League — has taken on a security force due to threats left on a Domelights forum before it was shut down. No word yet on what action the civic league may take now that it appears their wishes — to have Domelights taken down — have been answered.

[Full Disclosure: While I never posted a comment on the site, I did occasionaly visit it for sheer voyuerism]

After the jump, regional VC investment rebouds, a video interview on reshaping Philadelphia’s future and seven other tech stories you don’t want to miss, including our best read piece of the week.

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