Sneak Peek into the Upcoming Changes to Our Expert Experience

In the next couple of weeks we are going to launch several major changes that will revolutionize the dynamics around how questions are answered and consequently, the reward experts will be earning for their solutions.

These changes are part of our vision and strategy with the new FixYa site to put our users in the center and provide them with a superb experience and value proposition. As part of that vision, we have decided to make it our objective to hit a 100% Answer rate or in other words allow every asker to get a solution to his question in a timely manner.

Here is how it’s going to work:

Escalated Question Cycle:
When a new question is asked it can earn the answerer with up to 3 points if answered during the first 24 hours since it was posted. During the first 3 hours that question will be in Level 1, in the following 9 hours it will be in Level 2 and after 12 hours from the time it was asked it will be in Level 3. During each of the levels that question will go through, it will award a different amount of points to the expert who answers it depending on their rank. After 24 hours that question could still be answered, but will entitle its answerer with less points.

New Points System:
We feel everyone will agree that our existing ranking system is counter intuitive, it’s not always an accurate representation of who is good and who is best, and lacks the transparency required to let everyone not only know what their score is, but also how its compared to others. All of these were just a few reasons why we created a new and dead simple point system. As soon as we launch that project each question will entitle it’s answerer from 1 to 3 points per solution.  Based on the time each question is answered and the level of the Expert who answered it, a different amount of points will be given.  For example: During the first 3 hours from the time a question has been posted, any expert level who answers it will get 3 points. After 3 hours, Level 1 experts will get only 1 point while  Level 2 experts will get 2 points.  Level 3 experts will get 3 points regardless of when they are answering that question as long as its within the first 24 hours. All points will be pending until the asker has indicated they were helpful.

New Experts Hierarchy:
Unlike today when all experts have an equal opportunity to answer and earn ranking and badges, one of the key changes that we are going to introduce is based on breaking our experts community into 3 levels. Level 1 experts who are the most junior ones, Level 2 who are intermediate, and our top experts who will be at Level 3. Every time a question is answered Level 1 experts will have only 3 hours to answer it in order to earn the max 3 points. Level 2 experts will have 12 hours to answer the same question for these points, and Level 3 experts will have 24 hours to do the same. That mechanism will provide more flexibility and time for the more experienced and active experts so they don’t have to compete with junior answerers on the same terms. After 24 hours that question could still be answered by the entire answerers community.

Experts will be able to move from one level to another as they earn more points. The thresholds we came up with for the three levels are up to 100 points is Level 1, 1000 points and up is Level 2, and 10,000 points and up its Level 3. All existing experts will be placed in their relevant levels based on a calculation we are going to perform on their historical performance. It’s important to note that points are earned only after the asker stated the solution was helpful, and until then they’re pending. The beauty of that system is that experts will continue to earn more points as their solution receives visitors traffic, so the more users click on that solution to be helpful, the more points are awarded over time.  The three experts levels thresholds will be adjusted from time to time in order to assure there are no abnormalities in that structure.

Experts Dashboard:
We do believe that in order for that new mechanism to be effective in driving quality solutions to our askers in a timely manner, that system must be simple to understand and transparent.  Therefore, we have created a new Dashboard that will show the expert status, the required amount of points needed to go to the next level, as well as the points the expert earned and their position relative to other experts illustrated in a gauge. In any given time experts will have a clear sense on how many points they have earned, how many of them are pending, and their relative position compared to the rest of the experts in that Level. Beyond the points that experts could earn in order to qualify to a certain level, we are also going to count the number of views a problem accumulated before being answered.  We believe that the more views a problem has the more difficult and challenging it is to answer, and therefore wish to also recognize experts based on the difficulties of their solutions. We’re simply going to count the number of views each expert has accumulated overtime in order to differentiate between experts and their performance.

Performance Badges:
Above and beyond points, levels, or difficulty scores we also created Performance Badges that will recognize the experts who have achieved a significant milestone. Just to name a few, an expert who has answered lots of questions per given hour will earn a Cheetah badge, and one who answered lots of questions after midnight (local time) will earn a Night Owl badge.  These badges are not correlated to points or levels so any expert who qualifies to their definitions, which will be published, can earn them.

Gift Shop:
In addition to the sense of reward and achievement by earning points and qualifying to a Level, Experts could redeem their points for gifts at FixYa’s new gift shop. That shop, which will be launched a little later, will include branded gadgets, apparel, and memorabilia which all could be sold for cash or redeemed for points earned. So from now on the points you will earn on FixYa do not just mean respect and recognition, you can actually buy things with them.

So, stay tuned as these changes are just around the corner.