For one, coming into a community and asking members to give reasons why it "sucks" is a bad idea and generally is not conducive to being greeted warmly or getting your task accomplished. Spurring discussion, asking for feedback, seeing what ways we can improve... I'm all for that, but don't come off like a douche and expect people to a) take it in stride, especially when you have little to no rapport with them and b) give you the answers you want.
[/snippy dickhead]
Now, onto being constructive...
The biggest problem I see with the FWC community is not inactivity. I think it's a symptom of an even greater problem of there being too many feds open and not enough handlers to populate them. Because of that, and because most of us are friendly with each other, I think that we have a tendency to spread ourselves too thin and try and join every fed possible without giving our all to the number of feds we can humanly support and not run on fumes.
What can we do to fix it? Well, we should start merging feds. Right now, NEW, NFW and EPW all have workable rosters. LVW, MCW and UCW have rosters that are a little smallish. Then, you have WFW, which has been dead in the water for some time, but they still have a handler base that's profoundly loyal to the fed. TEAM and CSWA aren't in the discussion because TEAM, right now, is going to work as a sort of PTC-style interfed, and the CSWA has earned the right through their longevity to stay out of such discussions
So what can we do? I really do think that if everyone who is active in FWC now stays active (certainly not a guarantee), we can have three or four thriving feds instead of a bunch of intermittent feds. This is where the merger idea comes in.
For one, WFW should merge into NEW. This is a no-brainer. It's almost clear that Paul can't handle running a fed day-to-day, and if I'm wrong and he can, trying to revive WFW in their current storyline mode would be disastrous. So there'd be two different solutions without having to out-and-out close the fed; 1) merge into NEW or 2) reboot. Rebooting would be akin to opening a new fed, and that would be disastrous too. Since NEW and WFW have similar handler bases already, and since Sean has been in integral part in WFW for a long time, it's only natural that he gets to absorb any remaining talent that's left in WFW and is willing to compete regularly.
Then you have MCW, LVW and UCW. Honestly, the best solution would be for all three feds to merge together. Then you'd have a thriving fed out of the handlers there already. But you also run the risk of losing LVW's and MCW's unique characters. That's a price you pay, but I understand why there'd be hesitation to do something.
EPW and NFW seem to be getting applications every day, actually, so they really don't need to have mergers into them.
I really don't have an answer for what should happen after an NEW/WFW merger, but I think something should be done.
Worrying about websites is the least of any fed's worries, actually. As long as their forums are up to date, their cards easily accessible and their RPs/promos are easy to get to, then the fed is healthy. I mean, like was stated before, WFW has thrived without any website, and LVW has done well at points without a website to support their fed.
Posers and sites are peripheral perks. Handlers, writing, matches and atmosphere... that's where it's at when looking at a fed.
Holzerman,
Who might have to modify this post and put on his blog in a day or so
