Speaking as someone who only even joined this site because it had a highly visible arena section, I'd say it shouldn't be merged.

Buddha seems to have been very selective with his screenshots, as if you look at the Arena right now there are four threads active within the past day alone- one of which has no less than [i]seventeen[/i] players signed up to battle, with more on the way.  Yes, the arena has had periods of inactivity, but when it pulls people in it [i]really[/i] pulls them in.

What would the benefits be from making a merge? Uh... better "organization?"  I mean, if you mostly play in free/casual/advanced, those categories are already neatly arranged atop the others.  If you don't care about arena, so what- all it's doing is making you scroll down a little more to get to the "off topic" sections.  Is that really such a big deal?

What would the harm be, then? Easy answer: reduced visibility.  The arena is right up there as a category, and clear to see when looking at the site's main page- which, to someone clicking through a bunch of sites looking for somewhere to fight, can be a major factor in attracting them here particularly.  I personally only came here for the arena, but since then I've branched out and posted in a few other roleplays outside of it- and I very much doubt I'm the only one.  There is a very real demographic of people out there who want to do combat-style RP, and that same demographic can also contribute to story-driven RP.

So the solution here? First things first, I think leaving the Arena in it's current position doesn't hurt anyone and can benefit the site in some ways.  However, I agree there is a problem.  The problem is [i]moderation[/i].

The current arena moderators (Rilla and Skallagrim, from what I know) are barely active at all. I think it would definitely help to find new moderators to both boot up the ranking system again and encourage activity by starting tournaments and events. In general RP it's pretty easy to start something on your own and keep it going for a while, since generally multiple people are involved, but Arena fights are more precarious- in a one-versus-one you [i]need[/i] both people participating, and participation itself can be quite stressful, given the often argumentative nature of the writing. The solutions to this:

- Get tournaments/the ranking system started.  Fights can end prematurely, but if you put a larger framework in place then a couple participants dropping out won't necessarily stop the event from going on. See the current tournament: with 17 characters we'll see several fight threads in the first round alone, and that's even if we lose a few people beforehand. Plus, events and rankings can give people the motivation they need to keep a fight going.

- Experiment with group battles.  I've been on other sites where battle have reached incredible proportions- 3v3s, 4v4s, a free-for-all with a dozen participants, and even a massive event where over thirty characters teamed up to fight a titanic boss.  While the often disorderly nature of these battles makes them difficult to turn into competitive tournaments, they can be great fun, and can also survive one or two people leaving the thread. In short, worth trying out.

Essentially, I argue that the arena does contribute to the site as a whole, and having it in a prominent position can help draw in people looking for the specific type of roleplay it offers.  While I agree there has been some stagnation there, I feel this can be remedied by replacing the inactive moderators and working on setting up more tournaments/events involving greater numbers of players.