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Which I think is the point, Kris.  My two cents are this:  these fields are negligible when it comes to operations. The combined total of the list MAY receive a handful of operations a month. Instead of dwelling over this and coming up with a system that is not uniform and consistent across the division, why not just say, "Alright, they're closed" and move on.  It's no different than reflecting Runway Closure NOTAMs.  I know of a situation to where a runway was closed for an entire year on VATSIM because it was also closed in the RW.  I  don't see why we base our operations on the RW, and then once the RW does something different (particularly something relatively minor like this) it becomes a huge deal.

 We are still providing the same level of service to the pilot's who use those fields, but instead we now provide the services of uncontrolled instead of controlled. The only real changes are not clearing aircraft to land and depart, not maintaining a ground control, and VFR Flight Followings are handed off with field in sight.  IFR Aircraft still get approaches into the field (then turned to UNICOM for landing), except the age old one in one out rule now applies.  Aircraft on the ground can still get IFR Clearances, just utilizing the departure release method.  There are plenty of still operational Class D fields to get the experience of VFR Class D.  We are not taking anything away that changes any actual operations, it's all just procedural.

I guess in short, my viewpoint of it is this:  the closing of the towers really doesn't effect anything, just a minor procedural change.  These fields get little traffic, and a majority of IFR Services can still be provided utilizing uncontrolled methods. Over complicating simple practices are just unnecessary, especially in this instance. I am in favor of simulating these closures with the transition time Don has proposed, and then moving on to more pressing matters.

This has been discussed over the last few days amongst the ATMs and DATMs.

The VATUSA standard will continue, as the rest of VATSIM, to provide Local control services where Local control services are provided in the real world. That means that if these facilities close, whether it be for an hour, a day, a week, a month, or forever, we will mirror what the real world does.

I do, however, for a yet-undetermined transition time (thought to be a small number of weeks), support the notion that has been proposed by a few of the ATMs, to allow Local services to be provided on an as-requested basis, if requested by a specific pilot, on a case-by-case basis where the controller feels that workload allows.  Please be very clear: this will be allowed for a very short transition time solely to allow for a buffer to allow our ATC and pilots to adapt to the change.  

Folks, politics has no place on VATSIM. I don't like any facility closing, and this forum is no place to debate whether or not those decisions are "good" or not. But, VATSIM is about providing our members a simulation based on reality. The current reality changes on occasion. We, as our RW counterparts, will deal with that, the best that we can recognizing that this is still meant to be a fun hobby (not saying chasing hourly or daily NOTAMs), and do the best that we can for our members.

As was mentioned, I suspect that most of these facilities don't get a ton of traffic on VATSIM while controllers are online, so I suspect that this is not a huge game changer for us.  Let's not turn it into a major issue with pages and pages of discussion.  In our environment on VATSIM, it's not worth it.  I encourage you to channel your passion into improving the experience for our members.