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LEGO.com Message Boards Retiring


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For more than a decade, LEGO.com has hosted their own message boards for discussion between LEGO Club members on all sorts of LEGO topics--Bionicle even has its own category. The Board will be locked at the end of February, and a few days later the entire Board will be retired and inaccessible. "Nothing can last forever," says the Moderator's post announcing its closing. The Boards have been a large part of LEGO.com, and this reporter even found his way to BZPower after several months interacting on the Bionicle message board back in 2003. The Moderators are encouraging anyone who wants to reminisce and share their goodbyes to do so soon.

 

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I'd be lying if I said I didn't have some fond memories of the place. It was the LEGO Message Boards that led me here, after all. It had a good run.

"You are an absolute in these uncertain times. Your past is forgotten, and your
future is an empty book. You must find your own destiny, my brave adventurer.
"
-- Turaga Nokama

nichijou2.jpg

Click here to visit my library!

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All you have to do is know that I have a wiki page on the LMB wiki to know that I was VERY active on there at one point. I didn't see this coming at all, but since I haven't been very active there lately, how could I have seen it coming? :P

This is kind of sad, but I'm not too upset about it, seeing as that BZP, EB, and all the other Lego-related community sites are still there.

Anyway, I strongly recommend that everyone use the "Save Page Now" feature on http://archive.org/web/ to archive anything they want to preserve. I'm currently trying to archive every single page of the Chat with Greg Farshtey topic, and I could use some help. :P

Edited by SuperGeniusCreator
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The artist formerly known as


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BBC#69 Entry: Roodaka - Master of Manipulation


BFTGM entries: Zigben · Ventox · Deflecto


 


Hail Denmark.

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If I had an account on the LMB it was so long ago I can't remember if I had one. I dropped by a few times to look at "Ask Greg", but the ridiculous nature of some of the questions made me stop checking.

 

In a way though with the "Ask Greg" topic probably gone for good this could be the final end of G1's story. In a way though I am happy to think G1 will no longer be retconed every week because of some questions on "Ask Greg." Let G1 finally rest.

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52641688958_d61c0bc049_w(1).jpg.c0871df0de376218d7ca2bc4f409e17d.jpg

All aboard the hype train!

 

 

 

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I was on there a few times before I found this place. I've always been more of a lurker, with short bursts of posts every now and then. Funny thing is, I still remember the first thing I put on that board. The topic was which Barraki would win in a fight. My post was "Ehlek, because he has an army of eels."

 

Needless to say, 9 year old me didn't know the other 5 also had armies.

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Did you go to the 2002 'The Power Lies Beneath' tour?

If yes, PM me. I'm looking for something that was only distributed during that tour.

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Anyway, I strongly recommend that everyone use the "Save Page Now" feature on http://archive.org/web/ to archive anything they want to preserve. I'm currently trying to archive every single page of the Chat with Greg Farshtey topic, and I could use some help. :P

 

For those interested, some members of the TTV boards have downloaded or screenshotted the Chat with Greg Farshtey topic and should be uploading their copies soon, see here. I'm also running a script that's backing up every page of Chat with Greg Farshtey to archive.org--it should finish within the next few hours.

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Oh boy, this makes me somewhat sad too. I remember posting stories in whatever the fan fiction topic was. (IIRC it was about a toa who like accidentally found that antidermis pool and became half Madura so he had to deal with DARK FEELINGS and it was very DARK). Pretty nuts! I'll be kinda sad to see clone501bob go away.

 

But then the rational side of me thanks Lego for getting rid of the evidence.

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This is such a strange move on Lego's part. Their own highly secure chat system that parents can leave their kids on, gone? Maybe it just wasn't active enough. That might actually be the case seeing as with the fleeting glances I give that website these days I noticed it's a lot of the same older users who are still using it. Oh well. Although I'm not really sure if I want LMB users to flood other Lego communities. I know there are some mature users on that site but a lot of them are young children who spam a lot. Call me harsh but I think it's probably for the best that those less mature users don't enter the other websites. Then again I'm not sure how much longer I'll be active in any Lego communities so it's not my problem. Still though R.I.P old Lego website. You were way better then the current one. 

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It's time to move on.

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It was the LEGO Message Boards that led me here, after all.

Same for me. The Lego Message Boards were pretty much my first forum. They were slow (since they moderated every post) and clunky, but it's where I first found folks to talk to Bionicle about, and I totally moved to BZP after somebody mentioned it there. It's sad that they're taking it down, but hopefully they have something new and fresh to replace it with.

 

:music:

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Why has LEGO decided to do this, if they're not replacing them with a new set of message boards?

 

Is it a matter of corporate greed? Is LEGO just trying to cut corners everywhere they can find them?

 

Is it just a matter of laziness?

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Steam Name: Toa Hahli Mahri. Xbox Live Gamertag: Makuta. Minecraft Username: ThePoohster.

Wants: 2003 Jaller (from Jaller and Gukko), Exo-Toa, Turaga Nuju, Turaga Vakama, Shadow Kraata, Axonn, Brutaka, Vezon & Fenrakk, Nocturn, ORANGE FIKOU.

I got rid of my picture, are you happy?

 

 

 

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Why has LEGO decided to do this, if they're not replacing them with a new set of message boards?

 

Is it a matter of corporate greed? Is LEGO just trying to cut corners everywhere they can find them?

 

Is it just a matter of laziness?

It's probably a matter of "not enough kids were using them to justify the cost of maintaining them". Don't see why you feel the need to ascribe it to some sort of character fault when the reality is that kids aren't drawn to forums like they once were, and there are plenty of forums out there that can better meet the needs of teens and adults than anything LEGO could hope to come up with.

 

It's sort of like how LEGO changed Rebrick from a wannabe social network to a contest site, because all its social network elements were being more effectively performed by other sites like Flickr that didn't have the extra burden of protecting the LEGO Group from liability. Or how My LEGO Network was cancelled due to not really appealing to kids as it was intended to. The difference is that for a long time, the LEGO Message Boards DID perform a useful function. It just couldn't keep up with the changing needs of its target audience and the changing landscape of sites and services better equipped to meet those needs. There's nothing lazy or greedy about realizing that the world has changed and kids' needs (and the best ways to meet those needs) aren't the same as they were ten or fifteen years ago.

 

As for what will replace the Message Boards, it seems like the likeliest candidate is the LEGO Life app, which LEGO has already rolled out in some countries. It has a lot of emphasis on sharing your creations, commenting on other people's creations, and commenting directly on official LEGO content like videos — all things that were quite difficult on the LMBs due to its restrictions on links and uploads, but are pretty basic expectations for other types of online LEGO communities like forums and Facebook groups. It also seems to have more general sorts of discussion spaces for specific LEGO themes, much like the LEGO Message Boards did.

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From the FAQ:

 

Q: Will there be a new platform to replace the LEGO.com Message Boards?

 

A: The message boards are not being replaced. 

 

Edit: Also, massive props to the people archiving Greg's words.

Edited by Wazdakka

Steam Name: Toa Hahli Mahri. Xbox Live Gamertag: Makuta. Minecraft Username: ThePoohster.

Wants: 2003 Jaller (from Jaller and Gukko), Exo-Toa, Turaga Nuju, Turaga Vakama, Shadow Kraata, Axonn, Brutaka, Vezon & Fenrakk, Nocturn, ORANGE FIKOU.

I got rid of my picture, are you happy?

 

 

 

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From the FAQ:

 

Q: Will there be a new platform to replace the LEGO.com Message Boards?

 

A: The message boards are not being replaced.

Fair enough. Still, even if they aren't thinking of it as a replacement, it wouldn't surprise me if the LEGO Life app is where some of the resources freed up by retiring the message boards might be relocated. After all, it has a similar purpose as "a safe place for kids to talk about LEGO".

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We might as well expect to see plenty of refugees that decide to migrate and and make accounts here if they don't like use applications.

Last I checked, a substantial amount of Android devices weren't properly supported by the LEGO Life App, so that won't be an option for many.

 

BZP continues to work fine on mobile, though. Now if only it rendered nicely in lynx...

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