Expert: Katie - 11/1/2006

Question
Currently when you look at a category of experts the default ordering is by knowledge (the expert with the best knowledge rating goes at the top of the list and the lowest at the bottom). New experts who have had one or a few ratings of 10|10|10|10 thus go the top of the list, while experts who have answered hundreds of questions and have 9.98 are placed lower. It seems to work out this way a lot. Wouldn't it make more sense and be more equitable to order the list by prestige as default? Thanks in advance.

Answer
The experts are listed in random order. (Knowledge just happens to be the first option in the drop-down menu)
The list order changes randomly every time the page is loaded. (Try reloading any list a few times and you will see what I mean.) In addition, the volunteer who received the most recent question drops to the bottom of the list.

We designed it this way to ensure an even distribution of questions. In the past, listing by prestige overloaded senior experts and did not give new volunteers a chance to prove themselves.