Then There was a Contest!

It was December of 1996 in the GI Joe newsgroup. More and more people were posting photos of their action figure collections on personal webpages. There were all sorts of amazing things to show off, custom-made vehicles, hand-made uniforms, and any other combination of artistic talent expressed in 1/6 scale. One collector was particularly impressed with what he saw on the web and came up with a fun way to showcase and acknowledge this great talent. On the 29th of December he posted the following:

"From: Byung Yoon Lim
Date: Sun, Dec 29 1996

As I had a lot of free time last week, I enjoyed a lot visiting personal collector pages, photo galleries, this NG, so on. I have seen stunning and some ROTFL (because so funny and good humoured)pics these days. Incredible customized joes, highly detailed scrachtbuilt vehicles (Congratulations Emil!) and so on

So I have been thinking and just wonder why don´t we organize a Joe Contest!. Pics of customized Joes, vehicles, dioramas or any other thing.

Although my credit cards don´t even want to talk to me, I will be glad to donate one of the spanish Ms Natalie Poole sister as prize for the winner. (of course she will be a "NRFB" girl) and pay the shipment to the winner to any part of this planet wherever the winner lives.

But I don´t know how to organize it. Yeah, pics could be posted to the NG but how we do to get a winner?. How do we organize a clear way to get votes for contestants? Any idea?

Use your brains and post ideas to the NG"

Yoon's suggestion was enthusiastically accepted! The ideas quickly started coming in. People started suggesting rules and guidelines for the contest, webspace for posting entries was offered, others volunteered to donate prizes. Members of the group e-mailed each other to work out the details and the logistics of the contest.

In the meantime during the first part of January 1997, more and more often, members of the group started referring to the NG as "the Sandbox". Especially when welcoming new members to the group, they would be welcomed to the Sandbox.

Then on the 17th of the month, the following lines appeared at the beginning of a post with the subject line, "PROPOSED FIGURE/DIORAMA PIX CONTEST RULES!!!":

"From: GIJoeVote
Date: Fri, Jan 17 1997

Proposed Rules:
alt.toys.gi-joe Newsgroup (The Sandbox) Figure/Diorama Contest

Ok folks, one month and a lot of e-mails later we have hammered out what we think are fair rules for the Photo contest. We have done our best to incorporate as many of the suggestions made in the newsgroup. Please read
them and if you have any suggestions or corrections e-mail MHWa...@echo.i-link.net and/or TRi...@aol.com prior to January 21.

On January 22 the final rules will be posted.

Thank you

B. Yoon Lim, M.H.Walsh, T.Pleasant, S.Chan"

The rest of the message contained a long explanation of the rules of competition. But, I believe it was here in the beginning of this post that the newsgroup's "official" nickname was cemented into place. Other follow-up posts referred to it more specifically in their subject lines:

On the 19th, "Prizes for the Sandbox Contest - was" by Bpdsec

On the 20th, "Prizes for the Sandbox Contest" by K. Clapp

On the 24th, "Final: SANDBOX CONTEST RULES" by TRiP63

On the 31st, "Sandbox Contest: Rules Repost" by MHWalsh

By the end of February the contest was over with several entries and lots of voting. Unfortunately, the hosting website is no longer online but here is a list of the categories and entries in each one:

Category I: Custom U.S. or Foreign Military Figure or Diorama
101: Search in Mogadishu
102: Snowtroop on Patrol
103: Hanging
104: Cavalry Joe
105: Exodus Nazi Germany
106: Village Secured, Moving-Out
107: Two Tense Moments
108: WWII G.I.'s Nightmare

Category II: Custom Adventurer Figure or Diorama
201: Deep Sea Diver
202: Bond, James Bond
203: Slip-Slidin' Away
204: Narcotics Agents Score a Hit!
205: 1972 Lunar Secret Mission
206: Apollo Astronaut

Category III: Imaginative Custom Figure or Diorama
301: Raid at Bong Son
302: Space Commandos
303: Lazy
304: On Patrol
305: An Amazingly Boring Coincidence
306: G.I. Joe Meets Tickle Me Elmo
307: Lost and Found
308: Joe as The Road Warrior
309: Militia Joe Meets the New World Order

Category IV: Custom Vehicle
401: G.I. Joe Train
402: The Hippo
403: Customized 5 Star Jeep

Other great contests would follow, but this is the one that gave the newsgroup its identity, thanks to a suggestion from B. Yoon Lim. From then on, there was no question that "alt.toys.gi-joe" was indeed "The Sandbox".


On a rather sad sidenote, after several years of contributing much to the hobby and to the Sandbox, B. Yoon Lim passed away on June 5th, 2003. His webpages though can still be viewed at these links:

http://personal.redestb.es/yoon/comain.htm

http://personal2.iddeo.es/yoon/index.htm

http://www.geocities.com/yoonatwork/