I was first aware of the petition around that time but I was a bit put off joining the forums because if I were to get into an online Star Wars chin wag back then I would have done it on IMDB (back when you still could discuss something as mainstream as Star Wars over there) or on the JMSnews forums which were still very active back then.
It was a bit chaotic and really rather nasty sometimes when I lurked I remember reading with horror what DAYV had to put up with at one point and that alone put me off for a while.
I was only really prompted to join up after ANH:R because I saw the potential of throwing ideas in there and the place became creative and vibrant, not just a single issue protest site with a discussion board glued on. There were so many different possibilities.
I probably wouldn't have drifted over to the Off Topic area at all if it wasn't for threads like Frink's.
Between doing mock-ups and chucking ideas around the fan-edit section it was another avenue for using my imagination and getting to have a laugh with the some of the people I knew from elsewhere on the forums.
Since the Fan-edit and preservation section strands broke away I rarely contribute to the preservation side of things because I lack the expertise and materials to really contribute to that sort of project beyond taking an interest.
Now that I am doing projects of my own it's usually a nice place to pop into in the middle of doing often labour intensive and tedious tasks to get away from the drudgery.
The forums are certainly not as prickly as they used to be not by a long chalk.