Thank you @valeria_k for the context and @mdfw for sharing this is something you've also been curious about.
Ranks are designed to recognise a users contributions to the community, and in doing so just one of the ways they build their reputation among their community peers. If the rank is forcibly decreased after a period of inactivity, that would say their contributions aren't valuable anymore. Its probably true to say that in all communities at some point - by virtue of the business products and services evolving - content becomes outdated and less relevant to the viewer, but does this mean the initial contrition is any less valuable? I would argue no, more so, I would say there is a significant risk of motivating less valuable behaviours among your members if they feel they need to force activity to maintain their ranks.
I would love to better understand the problem you're both aiming to solve, I confess I'm not sure I do at the moment.
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