This needs to happen because doing the same thing over and over ingame gets boring after a while. And the game doesn't get more influx of new players in comparison to departing ones to keep growing.
We used to have OF quarterly activity reports, that could easily highlight roleplay that is being conducted on forum.
We have 72 hours activity requirement since forever, but when you peak at 30 players per day on average, that's just not sufficient to provide interesting and continuous encounters on server.
And sure, there are factions that have enormous activity through the quarter, but it is usually concentrated in one area where followup activity might naturally increase, while the rest of game map can be left void and activity decrease and factions struggle to remain active enough.
Perhaps a middle ground could be reached, factions can request for activity requirement to be lowered to 48 hours, but keep on forum roleplaying with others and requiring to provide quarterly report with such summary?