Over the last few months, various changes have been made to the forum groups in an attempt to eliminate superfluous permissions and other changes that need to be made to groups when new content is created on the forums. This has been an immense help when setting up new sub-forums and Files categories, as we now don't need to double check permissions for 18 groups, we now only have to do it for 8. As these have been Staff groups, they didn't require a public announcement.
The next two group changes do require an announcement, and at the very least a brief explanation for the change.
Past Donators
Originally this was just the Donators group, but the members of this group who had donated 3+ years ago were moved into a new group called "Past Donators". This was done to resolve an issue whereby members who actively donate and are automatically moved into the Donators group would receive the correct benefits, whereas a member who donated $10 in 2013 no longer qualifies for these benefits. This group change was made several months ago, and the final step of this will be completed this Sunday (19th March), whereby the group will be removed and all it's members will be moved back into the normal Members group.
Community Contributors
This group actually serves no purpose. A long time ago it was used to give recognition to members of the project that did something amazing, so they were rewarded with a group change. The CC group is also a sink for all Staff that retire from the project. Many members were moved into the CC group on rAthena based on their contributions/staff status at eAthena. The vast majority of members of this group no longer visit rAthena, so CC is a way of recognising members that are trustworthy, ex-staff, project contributors, etc. It's being replaced by badges to do the same thing.
Retired Staff will receive the "Retired Staff" badge, and if a member of this group wasn't Staff at rAthena, they'll be given the special badge that best represents their contributions to the project.
Why? Aside from the additional configurations per group when setting up new stuffs, it's a constant reminder of the past. A past that we're all moving on from.