The population may affect the participation levels but it certainly does not determine them, thatd be silly unless of course all servers were the same. Rather I think ill drop it for now, it doesnt seem highly welcomed and the interest just isnt there anymore
I noticed, although it is afterall a fault of there own and not of mta. Personally, I believe as long as a server is properly managed to accomodate certain problems theres nothing stopping it from becoming a success.