OnTheWayOut - "Their new elders manual doesn't indicate any move in that direction. It seems that if they were to do something soon, they would have put it in there. That doesn't stop them from providing some update in a letter or maybe even wanting to keep the Fader Instructions out of the elders manual. They have done stuff before. The problem lies in defining a fader. If it's total lack of meeting attendance, then I could go to the memorial and sit in silence and leave right at the end. If it's an inactive status, then I could turn in a bogus report of 1 hour every 6 months. Another problem lies in defining a fader's "sin" so as to be judicial on him. They would have to elevate the importance of spiritual association or the preaching work to define not doing it as a sin. Right now, they have so many believers that are inactive, they might be afraid to rock that boat."
flipper - "In regards to your question of the WT society taking " blanket " action against faders/inactive ones - I don't think they would do that as it would piss off many wealthy long time members who have inactive family members and who donate big $$$$$ to the WT society on a regular basis. AND the WT society is good about embellishing their numbers of increase to make it appear that each year hundreds of thousands are being added to the total JW number. If they DF inactive ones or faders in mass amount - they'd be cutting their nose off to spite their face."
Still thinking about this; can't shake the feeling that they might lean this way if they felt pushed (and there's a lot of different ways they could feel pushed). Like OTWO said, they could update with a letter, or keep Fader-related genuinely staying afloat.
I wasn't actually thinking of mass DFs, but something more subtle; along the lines of quietly (i.e. not necessarily any platform announcements) changing the files of inactives/faders to state that they will regard them as have DAd themselves if congo overseers don't perceive any activity for, say 6 months, a year, yadda yadda yadda.
Not that it would matter much to me, if it happens, it happens, but it might wake up a few more, or facilitate the CC's exit (I mean, let's face it, genuine progressive reform isn't really possible at this point).