If that's what it takes for you, then sure :)

I meant those that signed up, solved few kata and never came back. Not just currently inactive, but never really active.

Many of the currently inactive users near the top are there because they contributed to make Codewars what it is today by creating kata during early days. How the current default leaderboard is implemented is debatable, but I'm not going to discuss that here.

Oh, the "I don't know what is going on" was replying to the other person. Sorry for the confusion.

mostly inactive users in the leaderboard

The person at position #13 in the leaderboard is inactive 🤦

@Steffan153

For example, my leaderboard position recently went from about #302 to #299. I don't know what is going on.

I don't see anything strange in your case. Currently the leaderborad looks like:

• #299 8732
• #300 8703
• #301 8699
• #302 8688

It's very likely that you just gained enough honor to move up. You can easily get 50 points over night, like multiple kata you've solved in the past got out of beta or your translations were approved.

The rationale behind the change was that we had a huge number of mostly inactive users in the leaderboard. Also, I had to rebuild the leaderboard after replacing the database service provider and thought it was a good time to experiment and significantly reduce the load.

Like I wrote above, I'm still experimenting with the numbers. I'll probably change it back to what we had soon. This doesn't affect anything except for the leaderboard percentile shown on profile. And it's obvious now, but I didn't really think how extreme the change is for some users with lower position.

results in my leaderboard position increasing

The change doesn't affect the position (unless you're now out of the leaderboard). Maybe rebuilding the leaderboard corrected some data issue or included some of the old users that was left out for some reason.

@JasonMRoos That is very strange. My leaderboard position goes closer to the top.
For example, my leaderboard position recently went from about #302 to #299. I don't know what is going on in your case.

I'm curious what the rationale is behind this change. Although I mostly compete for the sake of practice and intrinsic fun, I have noticed that the recent change often results in my leaderboard position increasing (that is, I move further away from the top spot) with each additional kata I complete. That is quite odd behavior, to say nothing of its effect on motivation.

To give you better perspective, I earned 80 additional honor since the time of the recalibration (i.e., over the past half-day or so), and in that same time, my leaderboard position has steadily increased (moved away from the top) by more than 350 spots.

We've increased the minimum honor points required to be in the leaderboard. So the number of users below your position has decreased by a lot. The honor percentile describes your position within the leaderboard.

We're still experimenting with the numbers so this might change again in the future.