Urban75

The Urban75 homepage

Urban75 (also sometimes referred to as u75 or urban) is a Brixton-based website and messageboard. It was founded in 1995 and includes various content (photographs, games etc), as well as bulletin boards.

History

Urban75 initially originated from a football comic that started in 1991 as a reaction against sections of the media's representation of Cardiff City F.C. fans. Its editor claims that "the first issue sold out in three hours and at one point became the fastest-selling small press comic in the UK." .

From here, a Football Fans Against The Criminal Justice Act campaign started in 1994. The campaign received large amounts of exposure in the media, and in May 1995 a helper on the campaign from Brighton put together the first version of the Urban75 site, using a modem donated by The Levellers.

The first bulletin boards appeared in 1996, when the site was still largely based around Cardiff City F.C., but were soon abused by users and quickly taken down. Gradually, as the site expanded into areas other than football and protest, it grew in popularity and was moved to a different, bigger server (becoming part of The Head-Space Project until it moved to its own domain in 1998). Early publicity was generated by Shockwave games in which celebrities could be virtually "slapped" or "punched".

In December 2000, the current version of the bulletin boards were launched, using Ultimate Bulletin Board and subsequently vBulletin.

Urban75 entered the national news when Brixton's police chief Brian Paddick posted on the bulletin boards in order to discuss issues with Brixton's internet users while he was conducting a cannabis tolerance experiment. However, when the tabloid press discovered Paddick's posting on the site, a scandal was born. In particular, the press highlighted one post on the boards, where Paddick supposedly said "The concept of anarchy has always appealed to me". A police investigation was launched, during which Paddick was moved to another position. The front-page attention from the tabloid newspapers, outraged at the concept of a senior police commander being attracted to anarchism, and additionally happening to be a gay man, led to many contributors joining the bulletin boards.

While the site has a diverse readership, it is incorrectly regarded as being dominated by anarchists.

Site Content

Action

The 'Action' section of the site contains an events diary, information, articles, reports and photos from various protests and marches.

Photography

Urban75 features around 3,500 original photographs, mostly taken by the site's owner. There are galleries of Brixton, London, New York, Chicago, Brighton, and Wales, as well as various 360º panoramas and photography tutorials.

Drugs

The drugs information section of the site calls itself a 'bullshit free guide'. There is information on most well-known drugs available, with the aim of being honest about their effects and legality, "'neither condemning nor condoning drug use'. The site says the information "is for people to access the facts and make their own, informed decisions."

Games

The site features dozens of 'useless' games, made by various web designers. The section revels in the fact that many games are pointless and have no meaning (such as 'The DOT-CLICKING game' and 'The Curious Thingy!'). The most popular games are:

• Mr Insult - a series of games based on a character who swears frequently
• The Cossack - games with a mysterious Soviet character
• Punch a Celeb - a hugely popular section where images of nominated celebrities are clicked on and are, supposedly, punched.

Football

Football remains a solid part of the site, with articles and features on recent cup competitions as well information on the Criminal Justice Act and original strips from the Bluebird Jones comic.

The Boards

The bulletin boards have grown into a popular community, with around 20,000 registered members, although only a fraction of which are active posters. It is ranked as the 370th biggest forum on the internet by big-boards.com. At present, there are around a quarter of a million page impressions each day, with at least 5,000 new posts daily. There are currently 26 sub forums covering a range of topics. Some of the most notable forums are:

Drugs

A forum for open discussion and advice about drugs. Some members are frequent drug users or addicts, and there have been several frank threads where users have spoken openly and candidly about their experiences. Whilst not directly advocating drugtaking, the open nature of discussion can lead to recounting of specific experiences and a highly critical attitude towards anti-drug propaganda.

Health & Relationships

The forum for discussing relationships, health problems and sex. Discussion in this forum can be very frank and explicit.

Sports/Football

The forum full of Andy Grays. Members have a wide variety of sporting interests and everything from rally to walking is included. It is also the base for the websites own football club and the base of the popular Fantasy Football League competition as well as good natured, banterful footie chat.

Politics And Protest (P&P)

This is a collection of five sub-forums (often including a sixth for topical issues such as elections, conflict etc). This is where the main political debate takes place, and where discussion can be extremely heated.

Suburban75

Suburban75 is the forum for discussing domestic matters, and features topics such as cooking and recipes, knitting, gardening and DIY.

The Dustbin

If a thread quickly descends into flame wars, is posted in the wrong forum, or is simply spam, the moderators rarely delete it immediately. Instead the thread is moved to the Dustbin, where it can be viewed temporarily. This serves to avoid posters asking where deleted threads have gone.

Community

This is where some bulletin-board users discuss the state of the boards and organise meet-ups. Some posters meet up for meals, or go for a monthly walk. Meet-ups regularly occur at music festivals and raves, the highlight of the calendar being the Glastonbury Festival. There is a complex network of on and offline friendships and even relationships and family amongst the community. A recent addition is a recycling forum, where posters can advertise unwanted goods that they are willing to give away for free.

Feedback

This forum is for the posting of questions about board issues such as management policy, details of how the board software works, suggestions as to new features etc. Off-topic posts in the forum are strictly not allowed.

Travel & Places

A selection of forums dedicated to particular regions, with one generic forum dedicated to travel in general (travel and world), and several others dedicated to specific regions (London, Brixton, Bristol and South West, Wales/Cymru, Scotland/Alba, Northern forum (as in the North of England), and New York/US. The newest additions to travel & places were the Northern forum and the Scotland/Alba forums, added in July 2005.

Board Management

The boards are managed by a team of moderators, led by the site's owner. The team consists of:

• The Editor.
• Mrs. Magpie, a long-term moderator of the boards, who specialises in the Suburban forum.
• Miss Minnie, who manages much of the technical side of the board as well as doing some moderating.
• Wolfie, who also provides recipes for the Suburban forum.
• Fridgemagnet
• Han
• Rubytoogood, an occasional moderator.
• Rennie, an occasional moderator of the World forum.

Forum Culture

• Members of the boards tend to be referred to by some as urbanites, although this is not necessarily widely used.
• A greeting to new members used by a few posters is "Come in, sit down, have a Hobnob and don't lend Dub a fiver". 'Dub' refers to a member calling himself Dubversion, but the origins of the greeting are largely unknown.
• Some posters like to be the last poster on a thread before it is binned. If a thread looks likely to be binned, a few members will rush to post a message like 'Last in bin?'
• An infrequent game played by some members is Mornington Crescent, as popularized by the BBC Radio 4 series I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. When played it can stretch on for days, confusing old and new members alike, whilst amusing those who play it.
• Various 'board games' (ie. games played on the bulletin boards) have been pioneered by the urbanite DrJazzz and others, such as the Thread Killer Competition, where posters compete to be the last person to post on the alloted thread, and other competitions such as thread bumping, or predicting the times of certain events, such as the death of Pope John Paul II. In recent times, 'poster above you' activities and word games have become more popular with some posters.
• Some phrases used on the boards include:
  • Rascist!!! a mock accusation of racism, usually directed at an innocuous remark, generally intended as a dig at the tendency of some to see racism where none exists.
  • *bangs on perspex screen* a call for slow-witted posters to hurry up their response. This was invented by ernestolynch, in the famous Bookies thread where Flimsier was executed.
  • *shakes fist* (a usually ironic angry post, accompanied by a similarly angry smiley. Variants include: *bangs on window* and *lights torch*). This is a catchphrase of poster rorymac.
  • bookmarks an expression of interest in a thread.
  • Bin/ban/etc a demand or prediction, often made humorously, that the poster above is banned and the whole thread placed in the dustbin forum.
  • Political Correctness gone mad, a general phrase with origins elsewhere. It is used either to satirise the attempts of certain elements of the press to dismiss any socially progressive action as "PC", or, occasionally, in a serious manner by some.
  • Margaret Thatcher is dead. A famously overused aspiration

Urbanites club events

In September 2001, the first Urbanites club night was held at the Brixton Telegraph club. Organised by the site's posters already involved in club promotion, notably bulletin boardmembers Zeedoodles, pk, and sam/phallocrat, the night came out of a desire to bring members of the fast-growing community together. There were at least 12 of these dedicated U75 nights between the end of 2001 and 2003, from which lasting relationships and even in some cases marriages and children were formed! Musically, these events were dance music based, and featured mainly house music and techno, with occasional diversions into jungle, ska, drum and bass and breakbeat.

The 'Urbanite' events have now been effectively succeeded by the current once-monthy Offline night run by the sites editor. "Hedgeparties", (outdoor raves held in annually somewhere in South London), and the "People's Republic of Disco" (PROD) events still attract many clubbers. Individual posters also organise their own events privately via the board.

Offline

On 19th February 2004, the first Offline club night was held at the Brixton Ritzy cinema. Organised by the site's editor and various other members, it showcased a mix of DJs, poets and artists, for no admission fee, as well as expanding the urban75 "community" further into the "real" world. On 30th September 2004, the night moved to the Dogstar club in Brixton, but has now moved to Jamm up the Brixton Rd Offline. The night is held on the last Thursday of every month.

Chat

Urban75 also has a long-established but quiet Internet Relay Chat server, whose members discuss a range of subjects. Discussions may sometimes get heated, but are more likely to be long and slow or nonexistent at times. Chat tends to be busiest in the mid-to-late evenings (UK time) - or when the boards are down.

Clan

In January 2005 a former (see banned list link below) poster set up a website and a server for an Urban75 Clan, which allowed members to play computer games with each other online. Although any online-enabled game can be played, the most popular is Counterstrike Source. Statistics from the U75 Clan Counter Strike Server, the best player by statistics is in constant dispute, can be found here

There is an ongoing on debate within the clan about resetting the stats due to some recent problems with the server and Valve game updates.

Radio

On May 1 2005 a group of posters made a pilot radio show for the website, available to download as an mp3. The three pilots that followed including an interview with the manager of the site, some originally recorded music contributed by members, documentaries, and live recordings from the Offline club night. As of October 2005 this project seems to be dormant.

Press

Quite a few journalists use the site - some openly, some not - and posters can find themselves quoted in national papers or other websites. The most recent example was when a survivor of the London tube bombings posted an account of her experience, which became a blog on the BBC website.

Criticisms

Criticisms have been made of the banning policy on the board, suggesting that bans are unfairly distributed and the length of bans is inconsistent, with long-running posters or those who are friends of the moderators being allowed more leeway than others, or that people are banned merely because they hold a specific political position rather than because of disruption caused. This is denied on all counts by the moderation team, with the proviso that posters professing certain far-right racist views are often automatically banned, as detailed in the forum rules.

A small subset of posters have questioned the site's financial arrangements, claiming that the site's accounts are insufficiently transparent. Moderators reply that it's not an issue for most people as no one forces anyone to donate money.

It has also been suggested that the site, although Brixton based, is not now as representative of Brixton as it once was, though it has been argued that this is due to there now being 30,000 registered members from all over the world.

External links

• Urban75
• Urban75 bulletin boards
• Urban75 clan
• Urban75 radio
• Offline Club Night
• The Peoples Republic of Disco