List randomizer
Paste a list and get the whole thing back shuffled — an order, not a single pick. Useful for turn order, review rotas, and anything where going alphabetically would be unfair.
Shuffling an order, not picking a winner
The wheel answers "who is next". This answers "what is the order", which is a different question and usually the one that matters when everybody gets a turn eventually.
Presentation order is the common case. Going alphabetically means the same people open and close every time, and the first slot and the last slot are not equally comfortable places to be.
The output is the full list, numbered, ready to copy. Re-running gives a completely fresh order rather than nudging the previous one.
Why not just sort randomly
Sorting a list with a comparator that returns a random result is the shuffle almost everybody writes first, and it does not produce a uniform order. Sorting algorithms assume the comparator is consistent; feed one that is not and the outcome depends on the algorithm's internals, which favour some orderings heavily over others.
The bias is not subtle at small sizes. On a list of half a dozen, some arrangements can be several times more likely than others — enough that the same person keeps landing near the front of a weekly rota.
Fisher-Yates has no such problem: walk the list once, swap each position with a uniformly chosen earlier one, and every permutation is exactly equally likely. It is also faster, which is a pleasant accident rather than the reason.
Keeping a shuffle
An order is worth nothing if it changes when the page reloads midway through a meeting, so the result stays on screen until you ask for a new one. Reloading does not silently reshuffle.
If you need the same order twice — across two sessions, or for two people to check — copy it out. There is deliberately no saved-shuffle account: storing the list would mean uploading it, and the list is often names.
Blank lines and stray spaces are dropped rather than shuffled into the order as invisible entries, which is otherwise a reliable way to end up with a mysterious empty slot.
Common questions
How do I randomize the order of a list?
Paste it in and shuffle. You get the whole list back in a new order rather than a single pick, numbered and ready to copy.
Is a random sort the same as a shuffle?
No. Sorting with a random comparator is measurably biased because sorting assumes consistent comparisons. This uses Fisher-Yates, where every possible order is equally likely.
Does the order change if I reload?
No. The shuffle stays until you ask for a new one, so a reload mid-meeting does not quietly reorder everybody.