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Changes to Upwork’s User Flag System

dorianwork
Retired Team Member

Hi, Upwork Community! I’m Dorian. I joined Upwork’s Trust and Safety Team a few months ago as a Product Manager. My fellow Trust and Safety Team members and I are committed to making your experience on Upwork as positive and fruitful as possible. 

 

As some of you may have noticed, we recently revamped our User Flag options. We added a few new flags, and we removed some as well. 

 

We recognize and understand that users aren’t happy about some of these changes. Let’s talk a little bit about our User Flag system and what we’re doing to address the concerns of users on Upwork. 

 

What are User Flags? 

In short, User Flags give talent and clients the ability to flag and report profiles, job postings, portfolios, and messages that contain content that goes against Upwork’s Terms of Service. All reports are confidential, and we do not share your identity with the user you flagged. 

 

Here are a few examples of common User Flags: 

 

  • Person is requesting payment outside of Upwork
  • Message contains a suspicious link or looks like spam
  • Profile looks fake or contains stolen/plagiarized content

 

This reporting system helps keep Upwork safe and efficient for both talent and clients. 

 

Why did we change our User Flags? 

We consolidated some of the User Flag options earlier this year hoping to improve clarity and make it easier for us to receive and process reports. Most of the options that we combined were often either confused for other violations or not commonly used. 

 

After receiving feedback on the changes, though, we realized the Upwork community as a whole was not happy with the revisions we made. In order to understand how we could remedy the problem, we reviewed the comments from the  “It's something else” flags. 

 

I ran a deep-dive analysis of the comments. Here’s a quick breakdown of the most common comments that were left under the “It’s something else” option: 

 

  • Client is asking for free work- 17.40%
  • Job post is Illegal or Unethical- 12.70%
  • This is a Freelancer ad not a job- 10.90%
  • Job post is unclear or incomplete- 7.70%

 

Now that we see and understand the Upwork community feels these issues are important enough to have their own User Flags, we will be adding them, along with a few others, to the list of reporting options.

 

Why did we take away the “Client is asking for free work” flag? 

As the numbers show, I found the most frequent “It’s something else” comments to be some form of “Client is asking for free work.” 

 

We’ve received feedback from talent and acknowledge that a lot of users are especially disappointed that the “Client is asking for free work” flag was removed. We heard you, and we listened. You’ll be happy to know that “Client is asking for free work” will definitely be added back to the list of User Flags. 

 

How can freelancers effectively utilize the User Flag system? 

If you need to flag a user or a job posting, all you have to do is click the “Flag as inappropriate” button located at the upper right of every job and profile on Upwork. We take all reports from users very seriously.  You can also find more information in our flag system Help article

 

Here are a few tips for using our User Flag system: 

 

  • Make sure your report is as specific as possible. In order to ensure that we can directly address your concern, please provide as much specific information as you can about the issue. Try to match your concern to one of the available User Flags to the best of your ability so that we can address the problem as efficiently as possible.  

 

If you don’t see a User Flag option that relates to your concern, select “It’s something else” and give us plenty of additional details so we can look into the situation and address it appropriately.

 

 

  • Remember that you have the ability to flag private messages. You can certainly flag job posts and user profiles, but you can also report specific private messages that are sent to you. Here are a few of the options you can select when it comes to flagging a private message: 

 

  • Person is requesting payment outside of Upwork
  • Message contains a suspicious link or looks like spam
  • Message is threatening or abusive

 

In order to report a message, just click on the gear icon next to the message in question and select your reason for reporting. 

 

 

  • Don’t hesitate to report something that seems suspicious. We’ve probably all heard the phrase, “If you see something, say something.” This applies to Upwork as well. If you see something that seems a little off, don’t hesitate to take advantage of our User Flag system and report it. Reporting suspicious content or activity will help keep you and other users safe on our platform. 

 

Without talent and clients, there would be no Upwork. We take all reports and concerns from our users very seriously, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure Upwork remains a safe and high-quality marketplace. 

 

If you feel there’s a User Flag that should be added to our reporting options or if you have any other concerns about the flagging system, please feel free to reach out to me or any member of our Trust and Safety Team. We will review your feedback and do whatever we can to address the issue. 

 

I hope this clears up some of the confusion surrounding User Flags, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

Best, Dorian | Trust and Safety Product Manager

 

20 Comments
dorianwork
Retired Team Member

Hi Isabelle,

 

I wanted to provide time for the community to comment and give me feedback and suggestions. This was so I wouldn't have my colleagues do the same task twice because I missed a flag. As it has been a couple weeks since I first posted, I consider the comment period for new flags closed and have assigned the task to be done. When I have a more solid ETA I will of course update this forum. My apologies if that wasn't more readily apparent in my previous messages.

 

Best,

Dorian

weinreich
Community Member

I'm just chiming in to say that, like many of the other posters here, the thing I'm reporting 90% of the time is academic fraud. Even if we have the "unethical" option, you're saying we still have to type in "academic fraud" and it saves us no time. Can we assume that if a human is reviewing these flags, they will be able to understand that academic fraud is the likely reason we're flagging it, or do we still have to type it out? Or perhaps you can add that to the description of the category (ie, "job post is illegal, unethical, or academic fraud")? Thanks!

abinadab-agbo
Community Member

While I appreciate you concerns, Nedra, I don't recommend Upwork add flag options relevant to specific fields or industries only. Such options would clog the list too much.

 

Whatever flag options are added should be applicable to a wide range of categories.

On these grounds, Academic fraud would not qualify as a flag option because it comes up almost exclusively in the writing section.

 

But, I may be wrong. If you're a dev guy, a translator, in legal, business or finance consulting or an admin gurl, feel free to let us know if you see academic fraud posts often in your feed.

lucioric
Community Member

The area-specific flags should not clog the list if they are programatically shown only in the categories where they are relevant.

Other issue, that I don't know if the wide opinion is that it deserves a flag, is where clients offers an hourly job but after a little they asks for a budget. Yes, I know that clients have budget, but appears an abuse of the job sorting system to post jobs as hourly intending to be fixed-price.

iaabraham
Community Member

Dorian H wrote:

Hi Isabelle,

 

I wanted to provide time for the community to comment and give me feedback and suggestions. This was so I wouldn't have my colleagues do the same task twice because I missed a flag. As it has been a couple weeks since I first posted, I consider the comment period for new flags closed and have assigned the task to be done. When I have a more solid ETA I will of course update this forum. My apologies if that wasn't more readily apparent in my previous messages.

 

Best,

Dorian


I don't really understand your reply. Are the previous flagging options like "client is asking for free work" going to be reinstated or not, like it says you will in your original post? If yes, then when? Or is it just one of those things that will be on Upwork's to-do list for years?

dorianwork
Retired Team Member

Hi Isabelle,

 

The "client is asking for free work" flag will be re-instated and the other three flags I mentioned will be added. I have assigned this task to one of the engineers at Upwork. Even though it sounds simple to add these flags I can assure there is some complexity to it. I should have a firm sense of when he will complete this task sometime next week and I will update this forum when I have that information. I know this flag is important to the community and I thank you for your continued patience and understanding.

 

Best,

Dorian

dorianwork
Retired Team Member

Hi Everyone,

 

I've spoken with the engineering team. The job posts flags update will be completed in the next two weeks. We are hopeful that it will get done sooner. Additionally, the agents who will be reviewing the flags have been informed that "Job post is illegal or unethical" also covers Academic Fraud. Which means you won't have to type "Academic Fraud" in the comment box as they will be looking for this behavior for that flag. Please continue to use the comments box to provide any additional details or information you think is important, as it lets us resolve these flags more efficiently. Thanks again for your feedback.

*Update!:
Good news Everyone. Engineering was able to work some magic and the flags are officially live. Please let me know if you are having any issues with the new flags not appearing for you when you try to flag a job post. Again my thanks for your patience as we worked to update this feature.Capture.PNG

wescowley
Community Member

Thanks, Dorian. I noticed it a few minutes ago (but had to use "It's something else" for spammed invites).

dorianwork
Retired Team Member

Hi Wes,

 

Sorry to hear that you've had an issue. Can you give me more context on what you mean by "spammed invites"? Is this the job post itself that is about spamming invites or is the person posting the job spamming you with invites? Also could I understand why you are flagging the job post for spam and not the invite itself? Feel free to message me privately if you were prefer.

 

Best,

Dorian

wescowley
Community Member

Dorian H wrote:

Sorry to hear that you've had an issue. Can you give me more context on what you mean by "spammed invites"? Is this the job post itself that is about spamming invites or is the person posting the job spamming you with invites? Also could I understand why you are flagging the job post for spam and not the invite itself? Feel free to message me privately if you were prefer.

 


Sorry, Dorian, I didn't mean to make it sound like an issue. I was really just trying to thank you and let you know I'd seen the changes. The other was just an aside. I rejected the invite as spam and flagged the post for good measure - it had over 1100 invites when I looked at it.