The Decay Curve
Every LiveRank vote has a 30-day lifespan. Here is how the decay works — and why it matters.
LAST UPDATED APRIL 19, 2026
01Why Votes Decay
A vote that was cast six months ago tells you what someone thought six months ago. For many questions, that's ancient history. LiveRank treats votes as time-sensitive signals: they are strongest immediately after they are cast, and they fade as time passes.
Most rankings use a default 30-day vote lifespan, but creators can choose shorter windows for fast-moving domains (e.g., 7 days for weekly trends) or longer ones for slower-evolving rankings. After the chosen lifespan, a vote expires and is moved to an archive. The live ranking only counts votes that are still within their window. This means rankings are always a snapshot of current opinion — not a historical accumulation. The decay mechanism works identically at any lifespan, just scaled to the window the creator chose.
02The Curve: Day 1 to Day 30
The chart below shows how a vote's contribution factor decreases from its full value at Day 1 to zero at Day 30.
VOTE CONTRIBUTION FACTOR (Day 1 → Day 30)
03Key Moments on the Curve
- Day 1fresh
A brand-new vote carries its full trust-weighted value.
- Day 15halfway
At the midpoint, the vote retains roughly 29% of its original contribution.
- Day 29near expiry
One day before expiry, the vote contributes only a sliver of its original weight.
- Day 30expired
The vote expires and is moved to the archive. It no longer affects the live ranking.
04What Happens After Expiry
Expired votes are not deleted — they are archived. The LiveRank database stores expired votes in a separate vote_archives table. They no longer contribute to the live ranking score, but they exist as a historical record. Our Privacy Policy discloses this explicitly.
The archival run happens automatically every 15 minutes. Scores and ranks are recalculated after each archival pass, so the live ranking you see is always fresh.
05Why This Makes Rankings Better
Decay turns rankings into living instruments rather than static monuments. A ranking from three months ago that no one is actively voting on will eventually return to a near-empty state — an honest signal that the community has moved on.
Combined with trust-weighted voting, decay ensures that LiveRank surfaces current, quality-weighted consensus — not just the loudest voice from the longest time ago.
Read the full philosophy in the LiveRank Manifesto.