Sketch:
I'm not sure I've ever seen it work in all the years on the site in case that's relevant for looking for regressions. Sometimes you'll get some amount of sorting (might only be on the first page?), but it quickly falls apart. I have people on the second page that were online a few days ago, but people on the first page that were last online a year ago. Would be nice to have this fixed so that we know who's relevant when trying to meet more people from our area.
Thanks,
Sketch
It does seem to work, though perhaps not quite in the way desired.
Imagine on the map, a radius (as the crow flies) from your location. The smallest concentric circle, a small area (say, 1 mile), will sort by last online in that small area. When the number of members in this small area is exhausted, then it'll start listing users within 2 miles, but not within 1 mile, then listing those users by activity order. Then repeat with those 3 miles away, but not within 2 miles away, and so on.
So perhaps weirdly, someone who's 1.25 miles away but online yesterday, will show up
after someone only 0.9 miles away but hasn't been online in months.
Note that I don't really know what the distance/concentric circle cut-off is, and I don't think it's really 1 mile increments, but this is the behavior I've observed.
If you specify no distance requirement, then it's just last online regardless. But of course, that's of limited usefulness if you're curious about users who are only up to so far away.
I do feel like this is something to possibly change, however.
