I've replied to several members this week (in both private messages and group discussions) who asked the question in the title of this article. I suspect more of the same may be coming, so rather than posting the same answer each time, I decided to write this article, and will simply send along its link to members when the question is posed.
What they're talking about is this:
LVL is short for Level, and is essentially another way of rating members at Experts Exchange. The current scheme, with which we're all familiar, is based on the concept of a Rank. The Ranks are determined by the number of Points and are defined as follows:
Master 50,000
Guru 150,000
Wizard 300,000
Sage 500,000
Genius 1,000,000
Ace 2,500,000
Prodigy 5,000,000
Savant 10,000,000
Elite 25,000,000
Technocrat 50,000,000
Legend 100,000,000
The purpose of the new Levels is twofold. First, although there is an excellent article that clearly documents them, it is not obvious to members, unless you search out the definitions, what Rank is "better" — Guru, Wizard, Sage, Genius, etc. In other words, the rankings are arbitrary — there's no reason to think that a Sage is more highly rated than a Wizard. It could certainly have been defined the other way around. The Level system makes it clear — a higher number is better!
Second, the next Level is closer (easier to achieve) in the numeric scheme than the next Rank is in the Master-to-Legend scheme. So the next accomplishment is more within reach — good inspiration to get there! All of that said, the Ranks (also known as Certifications) are not going away.
Points and Level are related by a simple formula, as follows:
When the result is not an integer, Level is truncated, not rounded. Using that formula, here are the Levels for all the Ranks:
Master 5
Guru 8
Wizard 12
Sage 15
Genius 22
Ace 35
Prodigy 50
Savant 70
Elite 111
Technocrat 158
Legend 223
Combining the Level chart with the Rank chart results in a chart where it is easy to see at what Levels the Ranks/Certifications occur:
Master 50,000 Level 5
Guru 150,000 between Level 8 & 9
Wizard 300,000 between Level 12 & 13
Sage 500,000 between Level 15 & 16
Genius 1,000,000 between Level 22 & 23
Ace 2,500,000 between Level 35 & 36
Prodigy 5,000,000 Level 50
Savant 10,000,000 between Level 70 & 71
Elite 25,000,000 between Level 111 & 112
Technocrat 50,000,000 between Level 158 & 159
Legend 100,000,000 between Level 223 & 224
Here's one more chart that shows how many Points are required to achieve Levels 1 through 100:
1 2,000 26 1,352,000 51 5,202,000 76 11,552,000
2 8,000 27 1,458,000 52 5,408,000 77 11,858,000
3 18,000 28 1,568,000 53 5,618,000 78 12,168,000
4 32,000 29 1,682,000 54 5,832,000 79 12,482,000
5 50,000 30 1,800,000 55 6,050,000 80 12,800,000
6 72,000 31 1,922,000 56 6,272,000 81 13,122,000
7 98,000 32 2,048,000 57 6,498,000 82 13,448,000
8 128,000 33 2,178,000 58 6,728,000 83 13,778,000
9 162,000 34 2,312,000 59 6,962,000 84 14,112,000
10 200,000 35 2,450,000 60 7,200,000 85 14,450,000
11 242,000 36 2,592,000 61 7,442,000 86 14,792,000
12 288,000 37 2,738,000 62 7,688,000 87 15,138,000
13 338,000 38 2,888,000 63 7,938,000 88 15,488,000
14 392,000 39 3,042,000 64 8,192,000 89 15,842,000
15 450,000 40 3,200,000 65 8,450,000 90 16,200,000
16 512,000 41 3,362,000 66 8,712,000 91 16,562,000
17 578,000 42 3,528,000 67 8,978,000 92 16,928,000
18 648,000 43 3,698,000 68 9,248,000 93 17,298,000
19 722,000 44 3,872,000 69 9,522,000 94 17,672,000
20 800,000 45 4,050,000 70 9,800,000 95 18,050,000
21 882,000 46 4,232,000 71 10,082,000 96 18,432,000
22 968,000 47 4,418,000 72 10,368,000 97 18,818,000
23 1,058,000 48 4,608,000 73 10,658,000 98 19,208,000
24 1,152,000 49 4,802,000 74 10,952,000 99 19,602,000
25 1,250,000 50 5,000,000 75 11,250,000 100 20,000,000
The Level that displays in the avatar is your Overall Level. If you hover over it, a fly-out box shows your Level in three of the question's Topics (hovering on a mobile device is a known issue that EE is working on):
While a question may have up to ten Topics, hovering displays at most three — the three shown are the member's highest three Levels among the question's Topics.
An interesting visual effect with the LVL ribbon is shades of blue, that is, the higher the Level, the darker the blue. Here are three LVL ribbons next to each other clearly showing the effect:
Another feature in the avatar is a small symbol that appears in the upper left. It looks like a circle at first glance, but upon closer inspection, you can see that it's actually a thought/comment symbol:
A green one means the member is Available in EE's Live product; a yellow one means the member is Away; when the symbol is not present, the member is Unavailable. The LVL ribbon and the Live status may appear together:
I am not in an administrative capacity at Experts Exchange — I wrote this article based on what I've learned from various messages, threads, group discussions, and personal observation. My thanks to many of the folks at EE for providing relevant information, with a special thanks to Brenae Noack and Christopher Rourke.
Article Update 13-Sep-2016: As documented in the 12 September 2016 Release Notes, there is now a variant of the ribbon to highlight the moderators in comment threads. It is an orange ribbon, as shown in these screenshots of an Administrative Comment and a Private Editor Comment:
Article Update 26-Sep-2016: EE released its definition page today for Levels:
If you find this article to be helpful, please click the thumbs-up icon below. This lets me know what is valuable for EE members and provides direction for future articles. Thanks very much! Regards, Joe
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Comments (17)
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Commented:Good to know that you were able to find the article via Search. And thanks for the nice words! Regards, Joe
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