As someone mentioned earlier in this topic, we're having a lot more discussion about merging then over on A.org. There isnt really a reason for us to merge. We're not as active as we have been in the past. And nowhere near the tops of what it has been. But we're seeing reasonable activity with a few posts / topics per day by a handful of active posters. It's at a sustainable level and (though I don't have exact numbers) I have a feeling it's slowly increasing (very slowly...). So, we have little reason to merge and a lot to lose.
My personal feeling is that we'll lose some long time members since they are active because they want to keep U.net floating, but they have little reason to do this for a completely new forum. Just as an example, say that all forums lose 50% of their active members (which I feel is actually a realistic number). And suppose (fictional numbers) that we have 10 active members, D.net has 5 and A.org has 2. After a merger this would give a total of 8 or 9 active members. A win for D.net and A.org, but a loss for us.
A completely new, generic forum with a bit of an elf focus doesn't have any "unfair advantage". There is no reason why someone would join the new forum (with little activity) and not simply join the 9th age forum, the warhammer forum or some other generic WH related forum. At the moment we have our history and long term member who every now and then drop in. Create a new forum and all that is gone.
Another point, which was raised by one of our members, which is something to think about is
I don't want to sound ironic or with bad intentions, but if D.net and A.org are struggling why they don't join U.net with newly formed subforums for those races?
A fair enough question in the discussion. Why try to start from scratch when we can simply also build on what's already there and add members to U.net, strengthening what's there. U.net in a good enough position to continue as we are, but we can Always use more active members.
Also, while I'm opposed to a merger doesn't mean I don't see options to work together. Setting up a joint Facebook page, running combined events or trying to generate traffic for each other are all good things. But they don't need a merger to do so.