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3c12ea2d
Community Member

Ambiguous question by Upwork

A Bosnian translator I recently hired, did a great job. I gave him 5-stars, as he deserves.

Upwork also asked me: ‘How likely are you to recommend this freelancer to a friend or colleague?’ Well, I never encounter anyone needing a Bosnian translation, so that is unlikely. Let’s be honest, Bosnia might be beautiful, but the country is small.

A week later, the translator informed me that his 100% approval rating lowered to 98%, and this would hurt his business. Apparently, my answer to the recommendation question was to blame, as Upwork falsely assumes now I am unhappy with his work.

Could Upwork correct this, and remove the ambiguous recommendation question on the website altogether? Freelancers with ‘obscure’ specialities need to be rated according to their qualities.

21 REPLIES 21
VladimirG
Community Manager
Community Manager

Hi Edwin,

 

Thanks for sharing your experience. While I won't be able to discuss the freelancer's score, I understand the confusion and would like to clarify that the question about recommending a freelancer is related to whether you'd recommend a freelancer based on your experience with them and not in terms of whether there's a demand for the services they offer. I'll share your feedback with our team. Thank you.

~ Vladimir
Upwork

Thank you for your clarification, Vladimir. Problem is the question is ambiguous. And not just for me,  but also for many others who hire freelancers on Upwork. 

 

 I appreciate that you will share my feedback with your team. Could you also let me know how Upwork will solve this?

Edwin makes a good point, and one that has been made before. The question is a poor one.

 

Since the rating is used to calculate a "Job Success Score", the question should be about the freelancer's success.  Something like: "How successfully did the freelancer complete the job?"

To be fair... This question has always been ambiguous or easy to misinterpret. It has always been problematic, but it has been "equally problematic" for everybody.

@Preston H

Yes, but it doesn't mean it should remain as such. If it's ambiguous, then it should be paraphrased so that it shows the real intention, shouldn't it? We all want to make Upwork an even better workspace than it already is. 

By the way, I'm the freelancer Edwin's talking about, and I really felt disheartened when my JSS dropped down from 100% as it has always been since when I started using Upwork in 2016. Initially, I just wanted to ask the client what was wrong. I knew it was him because he was the only one who had closed the contract in that past month, my other clients are regulars, and they just add milestones to the existing contracts. I was glad to hear that it had nothing to do with my work, but still, I was ''punished'' and both the client and I were satisfied with the contract outcome. He even hired me after that again. So, I think this ''punishment'' of mine isn't fair, and for the purpose of creating an even better workspace for all of us here on Upwork, I think this question should be paraphrased. 

Damir:
Everything you say is correct.

 

I think most of us have just given up on this issue.

Preston H:

Well, I do not.   For the fee I paid to  Upwork, the platform should solve this issue.  Damir did a great job translating my website**Edited for community guidelines**to Bosnian. He should not see less business in the coming months, because of my 'stupidity'   of misunderstanding an ambiguous question. 

For what its worth, I was in the same situation before. I participated in a one-time job so when it was closed my JSS went down because the client replied honestly that he has no intention to rehire me in the future. Rehire and recommend are two entire different things.

Dear Jennifer,

 

Can I ask you a private question? 

Do you like apples or do you prefer oranges?

 

🙂

Oranges. I was allergic to them when I was a kid and could not eat them for some 10 years.

Thank you Jennifer. You just gave me the right answer, as orange is the national color of my country The Netherlands. My approval rating of you based on this trick question is now 100 percent! 🙂

Contact support directly, and explain the situation. Ensure they adjust his rating. This board can't help you. It is just a community board.

Thank you for your reaction Justin. Actually, I did contact support last week. Let me copy-paste their reaction:

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines** 

 

That answer is disappointing. Upwork is a big company. They can order  one of their programmers to change this system limitation. And they should rephrase their ambiguous question. Like Richard W. suggested, the private question should be something like: 'How successfully did the freelancer complete the job?'


Justin C wrote:

Contact support directly, and explain the situation. Ensure they adjust his rating.


They won't.

Dear moderator, dear Vladimir,

 

On 14 December, you wrote to me here that you would share my complaint with your team, regarding the ambiguous question by Upwork and the unforeseen consequences for one of your hardworking freelancers from Bosnia.

 

That was two weeks ago. Although I asked you to keep me informed about this issue. I did hear from you anymore. Could you please solve this issue before the end of the year?

 

Regards,

Edwin Giltay

Hi Edwin,

 

Thanks for following up. I can assure you our Product team reviews all feedback users share. While we announce major changes in the Community, if any changes are made to the way the question you referenced is phrased we'll follow up and update this thread. Thank you.

~ Vladimir
Upwork
petra_r
Community Member


Edwin G wrote:

That was two weeks ago. Although I asked you to keep me informed about this issue. I did hear from you anymore. 


Because Upwork aren't going to change their system because you ask them to...

tta192
Community Member

There's nothing to fix - this is exactly how the system is designed to work.

Just because you were the client doesn't make you more credible. No matter what story you present there's always a chance you or the freelancer are manipulating the feedback. The only way to prevent that is to make the feedback permanent once given, even if it was a mistake or a mouse slip or the cat jumping on your keyboard. 

 

You can suggest improvements but that's for the future to prevent such errors on other contracts.

3c12ea2d
Community Member

Andrei, are you saying that the system by asking ambiguous questions, is designed to be ambiguous? And could you explain why you are publicly doubting my credibility? Do you have any idea who I am?

Edwin,

 

I respect your fervid dedication to rectifying this issue for your client.  From my perspective, it says a lot about your character.  

 

With regard to the previous comment that mentioned credibility, I didn't interpret that as a personal attack against you, although I can see why you might feel that way.  I perceived the use of the term "credible' in a general/universal sense.  While it may feel personal, and even if it actually was personal, try to brush it off.  It's not worth the time or psychic energy to engage in an unproductive conversation, even if the ego feels a little bruised. 

 

I apologize for inserting myself in this thread, but I just wanted to offer my thoughts.  I wish the best for everyone.    

tta192
Community Member

Edwin: There is nothing anyone can do in this kind of situation to prove it's not a scam.
If the system allowed things to be fixed as you suggest, some clients would use that to extract free work or even money from freelancers; freelancers too would put pressure on clients to change feedback, and so on ... and everyone would have a credible story to tell.

As Heather correctly pointed out my comment was for the general case, not about you personally. You cannot be credible enough in this situation because no one can.

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