As part of introducing myself, I think it's important to establish those on the Message Boards who've made me who I am. So I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce to you my fellow Rogues.

There's myself, Master Ki-Aaron-Mundi, a high school student and current Vice Chair of the Rogue's Gallery (though by now, my term's expired... we just haven't held new elections).

Echo7Solo : Rebecca's Dad is our current Rogue Leader. He's a member of his local Fan Force, a semi-new father, and an all around good guy.

Armanus, Dark Lord of the Sith, is a master writer and has more knowledge stuffed up in his cranium than you're likely to learn in a lifetime. Armanus is our resident Sith Lord, and seems to always be on the other side of the debate from me. Some day we'll find something to agree on.

KBA's from the Great White North, ay? He's an aspiring film school student, prop collector and all-around cool guy who knows his Star Wars.

And last but certainly not least is (better make sure I spell this right) Morpheous Uhl Eharl Khoehng... as I recall, it means "The Trickster King." Morph's a loyal Rogue with a good grip on the Expanded Universe and a comic book god.

These four are some of my closer friends, although we've never met in person. And I wouldn't say that's because I have a lack of "real" friends, but because even in a Message Boards community, we were able to have intelligent debate, fun conversation, and really get to know one another. And that's the secret to getting the most out of your Message Board experience-developing bonds with fellow posters.

As I recall, it all began one day in the Palpatine and The Dark Side are more powerful it seems thread. Interesting to note, we certainly weren't all on the same side of the debate, but still found ourselves respecting one another and enjoying the back-and-forth of it.

Why were we drawn to each other? Because we enjoyed one another's wit, because we recognized large doses of Star Wars knowledge in each other, and because we realized that even where we disagreed, we recognized that these were people we could debate and converse with without entering into personal attacks and/or flaming.

From that thread, we all moved to Is Dooku Being Duped?, one created by present-Rogue Armanus. That was less debate, more discussion. We spent a lot of time analyzing Dooku's character and discovering his motivations, and picked up more future Rogues there.

We also spent time in Echo's Will Anakin Ever Get the Respect He Deserves? thread, which contained another dinner-table discussion with some debate but mostly group analysis.

But from there it was onward to the Weakest Sith thread, our most major debate. We began to crop up there about 100 pages into it, and by page 165 we were all there. That's where we had our heyday. This was a thread that if you went a day without checking in, you'd be pages behind.
And I'm afraid that, even after all that debate, the jury's still out on this one-we had to create another thread after filling the first.

Meanwhile, we had perhaps the thread most responsible for our bonding, Echo7Solo's brainchild, the Declare Your Candidacy for Chancellor thread. That one was part game thread, part fan fiction, and part role-playing... I'm amazed the Mods only ended up locking it by request.
During our playing around in that thread, we began some e-mailing back and forth so as to coordinate certain things, and through that, we all developed a good friendship.

That friendship was embodied in our Christmastime "Secret Sith" gift exchange. All the Rogues put in Star Wars wish lists and were randomly matched up to givers and receivers, which we then mailed to one another (never give out your address or other personal information on the internet). And I'd say through that, the Rogues Gallery was born.

We'd been calling ourselves the A Team for quite some time at that point (it'd be interesting to see when the line was first used), but by mid-January 2005 officially dubbed ourselves the Rogues Gallery.

Since then, we've continued to hang out on the Boards and communicate through e-mail. Our activities include such things as a group-authored Fan Fiction on the origins of Darth Plagueis and Sidious, with each of us taking a character, and taking turns e-mailing chapters of the story until we reached a conclusion.

Overall, it's been a fun ride. How does one get the most out of their Message Board experience? By meeting a group of wonderful people who share their love for Star Wars, then traveling the Boards together, conversing, and debating until you know each other inside and out.