I’d also be curious if since this inactivity rule has been fruitful for whatever it was intended to achieve. If it is, then there really isn’t much of an argument aside from it still seeming a bit harsh. But if this inactivity statute has not been a beneficial in correcting the problem perhaps it could be revisited.

A little side story that sort of relates.  There is two 7-11s near me, one always has old ass leather hot dogs that have been sitting on the grill for 16 hours.  This creates a cylindric problem.  They don't sell.  Customers don't buy them because no one wants elongated raisin looking hot dogs.  Because they don't sell, the owner feels its a waste of money to swap them out with new ones.  So these abandoned hot dogs sit all day.  The owner in their mind thinks its a waste of money to throw them out and put fresh ones out if they don't sell.  Why throw good money after bad?  In total, between sales and waste, he loses money because of this situation, his waste trumps his sales.  In his mind, hotdogs are a loss and not worth his time, he only has them because of the franchise agreement.  In all his customers minds however, they don't even bother with hot dogs there because its not a good experience.  In each of their own minds (the owner and customer), they are both right.

The other 7-11 near me, the second their hotdogs start to appear anything but good - new ones get thrown on the grill and the old ones are tossed out. When I go there, even before I get out of my car, I am like mmmm, I think I'm going to get a hot dog.  If I had to guess, this guy probably sells 30+ hot dogs to every 5 he throws out.  He loses the money for 5 hot dogs in order to extremely profit off of the 30+ that he sells, this cycle continues all day long, he is profitable and hot dog sales are a solid 10x the other place, he makes good profit.  Fresh hot dogs means more sales, which means better business and more profit.  Fresh hot dogs means a better food experience, which means more customers purchase them, its a win win for everyone. In each of their own minds (the owner and customer), they are both right.

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The 1 hour for an upper rules is a solution to a different problem. It is not to promote activity, its a safeguard.  The 1 hour activity is to ensure that members don't get trapped.  It is 100% preventable, the CL or a proxy can mail to let me know the CL wont be hitting 1 hour in a particular week (vacation, emergency, whatever) and they can be whitelisted.  If a hand who you work with daily disappears for a week, I am hard pressed to come up with a reason why it isn't noticed and they are temporarily swapped out.

The whole hotdog story, long winded as it is, is the real life retort to "I only got 1 mail today and 1 lounge message, I only need 3 minutes to run this family".  So if a member is playing a social first text game and their own crew doesn't talk, log in, or do any family activities, they are going to going to check out... and if that happens 2-3 times in a row they will just assume its the game and stop coming back.

I don't care if someone plays for 3 minutes a month or 23 hours a day.  I care, however, when people who are the gate keeper for all things in the game pulls up the ladder behind them, and then locks in their family and dooms then to a sub par experience.  Many of us have been there with our characters - we have an OK character, we don't want to die since we put effort into our characters, but we are not really having fun.  Asking to leave is super awkward and super risky, you have no idea if the CL is thin skinned and you'll end up with a bullet in the head and branded a traitor.  So you sit and wait for your CL to die and hope you live through the war so you can get into a family that is a little more involved in the day to day activities of the game.

So is this effective?  I think its as effect as it can be with such a insignificant minimum threshold to be a leader/figurehead of a community based competitive social networking game.  To be honest, I wish there was a better way - in an ideal world, when an upper loses interest in their family, its members, its growth, and its future - that they would step aside, or allow others to fulfill the role that they themselves are neglecting, or at least some kind of game-wide consistent social expectation that you can leave an absentee family without consequences.  If this was the case, then there would be no need to put in an artificial safety net to contain the side effects.

Long story short - There is limited number of slots for uppers, they can be held by those interested in being uppers, or they can be held by those who are no longer interested. The same people who lose interest now have the choice of either allowing the others immediately around them to progress, or decide to curl up around the ball in a fetal position, and deny anyone else the ability to advance, dooming them to just standing around and patiently waiting for someone to die so that they can resume playing.

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