In Rank We Trust.

01Opinions should have a lifespan

LiveRank is built on a single heretical premise: a vote cast six months ago is not worth the same as a vote cast today. Not because the person who voted six months ago was wrong — but because preference is time-bound. The best coffee in your city changes when a new shop opens. The best JavaScript framework changes when a better one ships. The best candidate for a job changes as the requirements evolve.

Every vote on LiveRank has a lifespan — typically 30 days. When it expires, it leaves the active ranking. The ranking then reflects the current distribution of opinions from people who care enough to votenow. Not a historical archive. Not a frozen snapshot. A living signal.

This is the decay mechanism. Learn exactly how it works on the decay curve explainer →

02Not every opinion is equal — and that is honest

The other foundational idea is harder to accept, but just as important: opinions are not equal. A ranking where a casual first-time voter and a deep-domain expert carry identical weight produces a popularity contest, not a quality signal.

LiveRank uses a Trust Score — a measure of how much you have contributed to the platform — to weight votes. The formula is simple: vote_weight = 1 + log₂(trust_score). A user with a trust score of 1 has a vote weight of 1.0. A user with a trust score of 100 has a vote weight of approximately 7.6. The logarithm deliberately compresses the gap: high-trust users have more influence, but not absolute dominance.

Trust grows organically: time on the platform, votes cast, rankings created, items contributed, followers gained, comments written. You cannot buy it. You cannot fake it. You earn it by participating.

Understand the full algorithm on the trust rules page →

03Communities produce distinct truth

The “best” answer to any question depends on who you ask. The best pizza in New York according to New Yorkers is a different list than the best pizza in New York according to visiting food critics. Both are valid. Both are different.

LiveRank's community sub-graphs make this explicit. Any ranking can be viewed through the lens of a community — and when you do, only the votes from active members of that community count. The same question, different consensus. The platform does not pretend there is one universal answer. It shows you many simultaneous truths, filtered by the group you care about.

04Integrity is not optional

A platform where votes can be bought, manipulated, or injected by bots is not a ranking platform — it is an advertising surface dressed up as a community. LiveRank is designed from first principles to resist manipulation:

• Vote decay means old ballot-stuffing campaigns fade naturally.
• Trust weighting means new accounts with no history carry minimal weight.
• Rate limiting prevents automated voting at scale.
• Coordinated inauthentic behaviour is a violation of our Terms of Service and may result in account termination and score correction.

Rankings on LiveRank are a public good. They are only worth something if people trust them.

05Why now matters more than then

The tagline is not a slogan. “In Rank We Trust.” is a claim about what rankings are for. They are not monuments. They are not definitive verdicts. They are instruments — tools for answering the question “what do people think is best, right now?”

When a ranking expires, it is not a failure. It is evidence that the platform is working. Opinions changed. The world moved. A new consensus formed. LiveRank captured it, and will capture the next one too.

That is the promise: not the best list ever assembled, but the most honest list available, from people who care, at this moment.