rank ≈ lesserOf($activity, $merit - $carry)
The idea here is that there's a new term called "carry" that will slowly de-rank you if you keep posting/doing things that nobody appreciates.
"Nobody appreciated when? Some of my posts have received merits even after half a year or more, and I've even seen posts from other users that were merited after years. In my view, this expression should be time-normalized, but that raises the question again: normalized to what period?
It’s probably best to leave it as is. As the saying goes, you may go farther and fare worse.'"