I don't necessarily agree that they were all considered as "JWs".
Incognito, My reply was in the effect of how JW's counted their members in the annual statistics that are published in the yearbook. As far as I remember, since the time annual reports have been published, all baptized and unbaptized have been calculated in the Peak publishers figure. This way of counting has never changed. But I may be wrong, Please correct me.
Although a person may fully believe and consider themself a JW, living their life as a JW including being active as an unbaptized publisher, they were not considered to be officially a JW but merely an 'associate' until baptism.
I agree with you 100%. But my point was- Have JW's ever made this distinction while publishing their stats? Two counts- Baptized and Unbaptized?
Regarding classification, publishers are also classified into two groups- Inactive and Active and then Regular and Irregular. But they are not published that way.
statistical practices and procedures may have also changed
Yes, they may have changed. But then again- Peak publishers have included Baptized and Unbaptized since the past few decades. That was my point. And since the past few decades, whenever the Wt wanted to give the count of number of JW's in their literature , it has been the peak publishers count.
please explain why "un-baptised publisher" is designated differently than "baptised publisher".
Since this classification is not done for statistical purpose, the only reason is that they do this for their internal pastoral purpose. Like the active and inactive publishers categories.