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I know this is a duplicate of Why is the list of all sites in the Stack Exchange dropdown not sorted?, but I want to start discussion about user experience of this feature.

As someone already said in the original thread, random sorting is the worst possible. It takes ages to find a site I want to go at.

It would help to:

  • add an input for quick AJAX search of all sites or some different keyboard-based navigation
  • sort this list differently - I would like to have sites where I have an account on top

Thanks for considering my suggestions!

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    You can go to stackexchange.com/sites which has a sortable, searchable interface. Maybe adding a link to that page would be sufficient?
    – Jon Seigel
    May 23, 2011 at 15:44
  • There also is a script that lets you quickly search the Multicollider
    – Manishearth
    Jul 17, 2013 at 16:22

3 Answers 3

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As stated in the accepted answer to the question you linked, sites where you have more than 200 reputation are listed at the top in order of reputation earned. The rest are randomized.

To find other sites, you can use your browser's "find" feature.

To get to parenting.stackexchange.com, I can:

Is that different than the search function you're requesting?

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  • +1 for awesome trademark.
    – hoss
    Aug 8, 2013 at 4:29
  • The StackExchange™ MultiCollider SuperDropdown™ name needs to be shortened so i don't copy and paste this every time
    – user393619
    Jun 28, 2018 at 19:23
  • Where is the StackExchange™ MultiCollider SuperDropdown™?
    – user393619
    Jun 28, 2018 at 19:54
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I'm curious as to why 'the rest are randomized'. On what basis is this a good idea, of the various questions, most people seem to think it's the worst idea.

There are explanations that the list is >200rep listed top (and randomized?), then randomized, but I don't notice any reasoning as to why. It seems about the worst UX decision one could make.

To me, the most useful list would be the sites I most frequently use (last login/ minutes spent on site/ last post made, something of this sort), then the rest in alphabetical order. Why is something so obviously useful as alphabetical order not entertained?

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    +1. I agree it sucks, and it would be very hard to make it any worse. Looking for a specific site is the basic use case of this menu, and they blew it.
    – carlosdc
    Dec 7, 2011 at 6:06
  • I suspect this is someone's clever idea to get people to explore new sites, whether they want to or not. I won't share the names I can come up with for someone who thinks this way.
    – Ed Staub
    Feb 4, 2012 at 17:47
  • Yeah, someone gave that as a reason before for a different piece of functionality. 'We're going to make things very difficult for you, because we don't trust you to explore things yourself'.
    – nicodemus13
    Feb 5, 2012 at 20:41
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    This is now the case, enjoy!
    – Nick Craver
    Jul 17, 2013 at 14:58
  • what about the general profile, it doesn't look to be alphabetical, maybe really randomized too - stackexchange.com/users/4171973/Fantomx1?tab=accounts
    – FantomX1
    Sep 4, 2019 at 21:10
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This list is now sorted by reputation first, and then alphabetically to make it easier to find the site you are looking for.

Global site drop-down in the top left should be sorted alphabetically

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