How about considering rep when ordering answers?

Question

I noticed that answers with the same amount of upvotes are ordered according to order they were published (i.e., older ones on top).

Wouldn't it make sense to order those according to the rep of the person posting the answer? After all a member with a higher rep is likely to give a better answer, and if this is not the case a single upvote would already be enough to shift the answer of the member with less rep to the top.

Answer 1

After all a member with a higher rep is likely to give a better answer, and if this is not the case a single upvote would already be enough to shift the answer of the member with less rep to the top.

It's not always the case that the person with higher reputation provides a better answer. It happens often enough that someone new to the site but an expert in whatever the question's about gives an excellent answer instead.

By your own logic, if the person with the higher reputation gave a better answer, they only need a single upvote to shift their answer to the top.

Answer 2

There are three ways of ordering answers:

1. Votes - the default. Answers are ordered by vote with answers on equal votes being displayed randomly until there are multiple pages.
2. Oldest. Answers are displayed in the order they were posted - oldest first - regardless of their vote count.
3. Active. Answers are displayed so the ones that were changed most recently are displayed first - regardless of vote count.