I wasn't on MJJC back in the day, but I was on Maximum Jackson which was just gaining in popularity in the year before Michael's passing.
Let me tell you, forums were a whole different ball game back then. It definitely felt like a smaller community, you knew more people. You knew which fans were in London and following Michael around, and you knew who was in LA etc etc. And because of these people, we'd often get info on Michael's movements before the media caught wind of it. I remember just before TII was announced, a bunch of fans saw him at the airport in England and were wondering why he was back so soon after his last trip. Then we got a few tweets and weird messages, and BAM! He was announcing it all the O2! It was crazy!
The other great thing was around 2007/08/09 we'd have at least one thread a week of new photos of Michael, and we'd all try to guess like crazy what he was going to wear on his next outing, haha! Oh my God, the "Zorro" day was just the worst, because the few outings before that he was dressing so sharp in those black jeans and blazers, and suddenly he turns up in the blue moomoo and zorro mask. We were all a bit like, what the heck Michael? Hahaha! Oh man, those were the days.