~~~ Unfortunately I see situations where this hurts server pop. Take 5 people who all glance at the server and see people 10 online. 8 of them are spec, but they don't know that! All 5 join, and while there is some disappointment to be had, now we went from 2 active players to 7 . . . much better!
What if the 5 people could see how many were spec? Well once seeing 8 are spec, MAYBE 2 (hard maybe here) still choose to join to help pop. The others are just going to wait until the servers "active" to join, which can't happen if everyone chooses not to join cause people are in spec.
My middle-ground would be not just the forums, but *members-only* of the forum can see how many are in spec. If you're a regular, I think you can be counted on to come back & play at some point, but we don't want to lose potential new players by advertising "hey everyone's actually in spec, don't even bother joining!".