This article is about the overall history of the LEGO Message Boards. You may be looking for the Timeline, a list of different changes implemented to the message boards in chronological order. Here is the history of the LEGO Message Boards, which is always growing.
The History Of The LEGO Message Boards[]
1999 - 2006[]
The MBs went through a Beta Test from 1999 to 2001. At that time, vast amounts of the LMBs were still unexplored, and they had a red and white color scheme instead of blue. At first, there were not as many topics to post in; so many users had a relatively low post count. In fact, JuniorBuilders in this period could have a stud. New ranks were slowly reached, such as Artisan, Inventor, Old Timer, and even Maniac. In 2005, an adventurous user named KRRouse became the first Maniac. Everyone was making progress, until the 19 of May 2005 changed it all. This major event was called The Great Migration.
LEGO was updating the account system for security purposes, so users received emails to update their older LEGO accounts to a newer version. If the user didn't respond within a month, their account was deleted. Unfortunately, the people who were inactive at the time, or didn't get the email, got their accounts deleted. One of these users was KRRouse, because she stopped posting around that date. KRRouse retired from the LMBs with 15,500 posts.
2006 - 2008[]
In 2006, the Roleplays were started, when a user named Kit-Fisto7 created the first HQ topic. They became pretty popular, with the first Roleplay Subforum added in the Star Wars Forum. The first HQs were full of spam, and users began to play unfairly, so a user named Treecleaver talked to the moderators about rules for roleplays, and ended up writing the rules. After that, the mods started making new roleplay subforums because of their popularity. Now, roleplay exists in almost every single forum, with the exception of the Parents Forums, the LEGO.com Forum and a couple of others. In 2008, another version of the Great Migration occurred, where users had to upgrade their accounts to a LEGO ID, and more users lost their accounts. Two victims of this event were Eagleeyedan2 and BusyCityGuy02, who originally had the accounts Eagleeyedan and BusyCityGuy (without the numbers.) After that, they added the 2's to their new usernames.
2008 - 2012[]
In 2009, 4 years after KRRouse retired, another user reached Maniac. His name was Empire981, a user who tended to SPAM (a lot), and was famous in the MLN Forum for his huge collection of Thornax and his willingness to trade any other item for them. Empire retired in October 2010, with 13,802 posts. After Empire became Maniac, other users soon followed his footsteps. Rock-o-Ages became the third ever Maniac in December.
Also, in 2010, rumors about a New MBs in development sent users into a frenzy. One of MKM's posts sparked fear that another Great Migration was going to take place. Many users feared that they could lose their posts, ranks, studs, and possibly their accounts. For the next few days, a large amount of users began asking the mods if they would really lose their posts, and complaining angrily that they did not want to lose their posts. Some users became furious, such as Dude777477, who threatened to leave immediately if he would lose his account. Fortunately, MKM managed to calm the users down, and the MBs were back to normal. However, many users are still skeptical about this issue.
Meanwhile Rock-o-Ages had begun to work his way up at an enormous speed. He quickly gained posts until he passed 15,500 posts, becoming the first user to topple KRRouse in 5 years. As Rock-o-Ages gained more posts, users began to predict that he would reach a new rank at 24,064 posts. This mysterious, undiscovered rank was called "Rank X". Near the end of 2010, Rock-o-Ages drew closer and closer to this rank. He finally became the first user to reach Rank X, after a Mod Party. However, when he became Rank X, he had no picture for his rank. On some browsers, it showed a "Picture Not Found" picture, and on others, it showed none. But on Internet Explorer, it showed a red X, and Rank X became true to its name. Back in 2001, when the MBs were still in development, no one had ever imagined that a user would ever reach 24,000 posts, so the picture was not made. However, two more users began to get Rank X, Dude777477 and Genralaustin. Users began to request a real image for the new rank, but for several months, nothing happened. Finally, on August 3, 2011, Rank X was given a name, "Legend".
In all, 14 users became Legends before the update, the list being as follows:
The LMBs before being re-ordered in alphabetical order.
- Rock-o-Ages
- dude777477
- Genralaustin
- Alemas
- Marcel77799
- Michaelyoda
- Eragon3443
- Guacamole1998
- cr9
- Lego.minifig
- 8ObiWan88
- Skulduggery77
- Wertys761
- Diglett809
2012 - 2016[]
In November 2012, the MBs had a major update. Many new features, including a new ranking system and a totally redesigned look to the boards, were added. The avatar system was changed, allowing you to make a full minifigure instead of just a head. Likes were also added, as well as a likes leaderboard. After the update, many new ranks were discovered:
- Caveman, Pharaoh, Spartan Warrior and Gladiator by Alemas
- Roman Soldier and Minotaur by 8ObiWan88
- Viking, Samurai Warrior, Knight, Highland Battler and Forestman by Brickgirl99x
- Ninja by AwesomePythor
- Aztec Warrior, Conquistador and Jester by Pacman87
- Royal Guard, Musketeer and Pirate by TannerJ2598
- And Revolutionary Soldier, Cowboy, Detective, Bandit, Pilot and Hippie by Diglett809.
At least 6 more ranks have yet to be discovered.
For more information about the update, see: The 2012 Update
2017[]
On January 4th, 2017, WhiteAlligator announced that the LEGO Message Boards were to be frozen on February 28th, and all content would be deleted on March 6th. Almost a full week after this date the boards had still not been deleted, and the news box was updated to state that they were to be closed at an unspecified future date, later changed to March 30th. The boards began disappearing for different people at different times, but the last report of them still being reachable was approximately 6 PM, EST. Many users moved to the LEGO.com Gallery and LEGO Message Boards Eternal.