IIRC, the rankings in the game are based on people who are activily playing (or have submitted stats in the last X days.)

The website Leaderboard (for FT, VV1 & VV2) are all players from the beginning of time (except for removal of cheaters.)

Therefore, people who have already gotten lucky* and achieved 51+ elders get on the board, but if they stop playing then they no longer count when the game checks the stats.

IMHO, reseting the website board each month would give people are are active a chance to get listed, even if for a short time. Those with better rankings would return when they play again.

But I remember reading that there were complaints (in FT or VV1?) when LDW tried that approach.

Originally I thought that ranking by Elders would be a good thing, since people actually had to play and manage their villagers to achieve a high number of Elders, but at the time I didn't know that there would be a limit of 50 per game (except for lucky* exceptions.)

*The only time that I've gotten an additional Elder because of the event, I was still under 50 total, so that didn't help my stats. Now I don't usually bother trying for 50, but just play the game and occasionally see if I want to make a new Elder.