inactive characters

i was just messing around on the website and noticed in barracks it says active players 10/10 and 10/18 for maximum for the server and little tic boxes next to all my toons for them to be active or inactive. does that mean i can click a toon inactive and make up to 18 total but can only have 10 active at a time? if i make a toon or 2 inactive do they lose anything ie gear, gold ect?

Making them "inactive" means that they don't show on the character list when you are playing the game, but they don't lose anything.