Luke's All Grown Up Message Board memorial page

What's a message board without a variety of fun events that members can take part in? It would certainly make for a dull place. Luke's All Grown Up Message Board had a couple of different things held throughout the year that would help keep members coming back. From different contests, celebrations, elections, and other small events, Luke's All Grown Up Message Board was a happenin' place! Relive some of those fun events here.

Probably the most popular event of them all is Luke's All Grown Up Message Board Awards. Two installations of these were held, once in 2004 and the other in 2005. Members and AGU fans were asked to vote on 30+ different polls asking a variety of different questions relating to AGU (i.e. Who is your favorite character? What is your favorite episode?). People were asked to vote and had 30 days to do so before the polls closed. Then, after about 30 days (later), an awards ceremony was held within a thread on the board, where award results were revealed. Members also played along and "pretended" an actual awards ceremony was taking place within the thread. Members also helped to present the awards within the thread, while I tipped them off through the chat room and instant messages when they were set to reveal the specific award. The first awards in 2004 included the top 18 moments in the board's history, while the second awards in 2005 included a separate fan fiction award ceremony and a members award ceremony. A third awards is currently taking place on the fansite and should be concluded by the end of 2007.

Those are just a few of the fun events that took place on Luke's All Grown Up Message Board. I am sure there are a few smaller events that I am missing. But it just goes to show you the fun that was had on the forum!

Towards the end of the first year of Luke's All Grown Up Message Board, I tried to think of ways that would help members get to know each other a little bit better. The awards were one way (but also helped to celebrate the board's anniversary), but forum parties proved to be another. They ended up being large chat parties where members of the message board got together and discussed a variety of topics. The first ever forum party drew in close to 20 members and I used it to reveal who the newest global moderator of the forum would be. Unfortunately a few people were let down by the announcement and it really changed the atmosphere of the chat for the rest of the evening. We also ended up battling trolls at these parties, which also meant that I needed stronger moderating tools to fight back the trolls. Eventually the novelty of the forum parties wore off and people quit attending. I also decided that these functions probably weren't the best means of making important announcements. However, the first few that were held were quite fun.

This was a contest held early in the message board's life. The message board had a counter at the bottom of the page that kept track of page views per link clicked. As we closed upon our first 100,000, I thought this would be a novel way of turning this into a contest for members. Whichever member captured the counter as it struck 100,000 page views would get an All Grown Up picture of their choice that I personally captured from the show. We ended up getting a member who captured the 100,000 right on the nose and another that got the counter at 100,001. I ended up giving away two pictures because the results were so close. It ended up being a fun thing to do and I'm sure the two individuals had fun taking part (one member still even displays his winning picture in his signature at Animatoons!).