A rule that needs attention from Upwork

[marafx]

Certain restrictions apply to feedback removal. 
Requests may only be made every 3 months, and after 10 or more completed contracts from the time you submitted your previous request

Let me explain. Most of us Top rated Plus we are  that top rated because we have long term clients. We earn rarely  stars and stripes for "closing contracts".
if for a reason or another we close one with a 4.5  starts or some weird 5 stars but  idiotic private feed back about we are forbidden to know, we cannot request the removal unless: 3 month past from last removal ( and this is fair)  and AFTER 10 OR MORE COMPLETED CONTRACTS.  

Dear UPWORK  Weather you are  not paying attention or this is  like  you are working to harm your business. You want me to close 10 contracts to be able to remove one not so good review ... while my contracts are lasting YEARS!!!!
You should be happy that  people like me keep clients here giving you the commission, constantly with long term contracts. Instead no, you ask me and others like me to have 10 closed contracts in order to remove now and then if happens some less  good  exit. 
There is no logic. Not at all.
I hope you dear UPWORK will understand that if we, the freelancers with long term and very well paid contracts will close those contracts YOU dear Upwork will go  DOWN the drain. WAKE UP!

[marafx]

Requests may only be made every 3 months, and after 10 or more completed contracts from the time you submitted your previous request

This should be
Requests may only be made every 3 months, OR after 10 or more completed contracts from the time you submitted your previous request

using and is  vexatory towards long term very high profit  for Upwork contractors. Revise it.

[lysis10]

I take it you got another bad feedback before you closed 10 contracts, huh?

[petra_r]

I actually think it should be a lot more stringent. At the moment it's nearly a free for all. Maybe make it every 6 month and 15 to 20 contracts?

[feed_my_eyes]

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Petra R wrote:

I actually think it should be a lot more stringent. At the moment it's nearly a free for all. Maybe make it every 6 month and 15 to 20 contracts?

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Yes, obviously Upwork's intention wasn't to enable us to remove every bad feedback review that we get; it's only for when we have the occasional misfortune to work with an unreasonable client (otherwise what's the point of having feedback at all?).

[prestonhunter]

I believe this policy is too lenient. Upwork should reduce the frequency with which the "perk" can be used, and it should reduce the number of people who can use it.

[marafx]

I am still 100% in my Top Rated Plus  JS profile. Upwork says... well you closed a bad one one year ago but you know, you need to close more contracts to be allowed to cancel this 4.9 review. I am not closing many contracts because mine, compared to most of the  freelancers, my contracts last years 😄
So closing  is ridiculous.
The rule is absurd in my case. I am not even taking into consideration contracts that would last less than 6 months.

[tlsanders]

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Christine A wrote:

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Petra R wrote:

I actually think it should be a lot more stringent. At the moment it's nearly a free for all. Maybe make it every 6 month and 15 to 20 contracts?

---

Yes, obviously Upwork's intention wasn't to enable us to remove every bad feedback review that we get; it's only for when we have the occasional misfortune to work with an unreasonable client (otherwise what's the point of having feedback at all?).

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Also agree. 10% seems the outer limit of what could be attributable to bad luck or bad clients.

[marafx]

Petra try the logic approach.
I hae 1000 contracts lasting for years allready. For one 4.9 stars  should I close long terms just to see it off? You say Upwork should lose clients due to its own incongruence in elaborating rules?

before shoting go check and see... maybe you shoot the wrong person.

[tlsanders]

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Antonia B. V wrote:

I hae 1000 contracts lasting for years allready.

Why does your profile say you have had 60 jobs? 

For one 4.9 stars  should I close long terms just to see it off?

There's no reason to remove a 4.9 review, and Upwork certainly didn't intend the perk to allow freelancers to remove anything that would drop them very slightly below 100%. 

[petra_r]

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Antonia B. V wrote:

 You say Upwork should lose clients due to its own incongruence in elaborating rules?

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Upwork wouldn't "lose clients" - how would Upwork "lose clients" that way?

[richard_wein]

Hi Antonia. I think you have it the wrong way round. The current rule favours people who do longer contracts, like you. Someone who does 10 contacts per month can only remove feedback on one contract in 30. But you can remove feedback on one contract in 10.

It's the number of contracts that matters here, not the length of time, because each contract is an opportunity for something to go wrong.

If you could remove one feedback every 3 months and you only complete one contract every 3 months, then you could remove feedback on every contract. Does that make sense? It might suit you, but the purpose of feedback is not to help freelancers. It's to help clients get a balanced view of how good a freelancer is. If a freelancer could get bad feedback  on 50% of contracts and remove all of those, leaving only the good ones, the feedback would be worthless.

[petra_r]

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Richard W wrote:

each contract is an opportunity for something to go wrong.

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Exactly! Well said.

[marafx]

Not a bad one  pubblic are all 5 stars... guess there is someone or something in private feed back... not a big loss 100 down to 98 but anyways what troubles is the ilogical 3 months AND 10 closed contracts--- most of us work on long time contracts. Closing them just to eliminate one  not so good review...
Also I don't like or agree with your way of patronizing me: You got another one of those bad reviews .... you say.
Dear freelancer you assume much  based on little. Better check beforfe making asumptions that might be offensive.

[lysis10]

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Antonia B. V wrote:

Not a bad one  pubblic are all 5 stars... guess there is someone or something in private feed back... not a big loss 100 down to 98 but anyways what troubles is the ilogical 3 months AND 10 closed contracts--- most of us work on long time contracts. Closing them just to eliminate one  not so good review...
Also I don't like or agree with your way of patronizing me: You got another one of those bad reviews .... you say.
Dear freelancer you assume much  based on little. Better check beforfe making asumptions that might be offensive.

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oic so you just decided to rant over this thing out of the blue? I sea I see.

[marafx]

well call it a rant but I cannot go tell my 3 years old client that trusts me with his life: you know I must close with you because Upwork thinks I need to close 10 contracts to be allowed to  eliminate someone that had a bad day at work review...  My contracts last a lot -  and there is a lot... asking me to close at least 10 contracts is impossible: my job regards only long contracts... not short term. And  Upwork should consider these cases since it's not only me doing long terms...  it is unfair and illogical

[tlsanders]

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Antonia B. V wrote:

well call it a rant but I cannot go tell my 3 years old client that trusts me with his life: you know I must close with you because Upwork thinks I need to close 10 contracts to be allowed to  eliminate someone that had a bad day at work review... 

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But that would be a lie. The real reason would be that you have some bizarre need to erase even the tiniest hint of imperfection, which is not realistic, mentally healthy or anything like what Upwork intended the perk to address. 

[wlyonsatl]

I wish Upwork would make it clearer to both freelancers and clients that a JSS of 100 is not a clear definer of which freelancer is "best" for a project.

[abinadab-agbo]

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Will L wrote:

I wish Upwork would make it clearer to both freelancers and clients that a JSS of 100 is not a clear definer of which freelancer is "best" for a project.

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How I wish you would say this when your JSS was on a steady tip-top 100.

Then we would have taken this matter up with Upwork 😤

PS: I saw the deleted message...

[abinadab-agbo]

Using the perk can actually hurt your score.

Lots of people have reported drops in their score on this forum, following feedback removal.

This could be

- because the person removed what was actually a positive outcome; and

- the person removed an outcome from his best JSS window, following the removal of which, there were no longer sufficient outcomes in that window to calculate a score from that window.

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Preston Hunter wrote:

I believe this policy is too lenient. Upwork should reduce the frequency with which the "perk" can be used, and it should reduce the number of people who can use it.

---

As above. Excessive use of the perk currently hurts the JSS. So,

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Antonia B. V wrote:

Requests may only be made every 3 months, and after 10 or more completed contracts from the time you submitted your previous request

This should be
Requests may only be made every 3 months, OR after 10 or more completed contracts from the time you submitted your previous request

using and is  vexatory towards long term very high profit  for Upwork contractors. Revise it.

---

Be careful what you ask for. Making it easier for a Top Rated Plus with fewer contracts to use the perk will more likely than not, empower you to ruin your JSS.

[richard_wein]

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Antonia B. V wrote:

well call it a rant but I cannot go tell my 3 years old client that trusts me with his life: you know I must close with you because Upwork thinks I need to close 10 contracts to be allowed to  eliminate someone that had a bad day at work review...

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There are ways to manipulate the system, and getting clients to close contracts unnecessarily is one of them. It's to your credit that you won't inconvenience your client in order to manipulate the system.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Antonia B. V wrote:

Not a bad one  pubblic are all 5 stars... guess there is someone or something in private feed back... not a big loss 100 down to 98 but anyways what troubles is the ilogical 3 months AND 10 closed contracts--- most of us work on long time contracts. Closing them just to eliminate one  not so good review...
Also I don't like or agree with your way of patronizing me: You got another one of those bad reviews .... you say.
Dear freelancer you assume much  based on little. Better check beforfe making asumptions that might be offensive.

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Your JSS is 100%; are you really that worried about ONE review in which you got 4.9 instead of 5? You're setting impossible standards for yourself.

[marafx]

My Js in My stats is 100... was 100 for years... But for some reason on Public Profile reads 98. 
I know 98 is wow too but honestly this discordance is creating not little fuss. 

[abinadab-agbo]

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Antonia B. V wrote:

My Js in My stats is 100... was 100 for years... But for some reason on Public Profile reads 98. 
I know 98 is wow too but honestly this discordance is creating not little fuss. 

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It's not a discordance per se; the JSS takes a while to update across the site.

Your new JSS is the correct one, which is 98%.

[marafx]

Well I do my best to have everybody happy... not easy but doable. Not impossible standards I might say since I'm 100% for  a long time already.
maybe they want me to board more clients? Can't do I'm on long term ones  over 50% are long term while 47% are average term...  the day has 24 hours....  Maybe Upwork should consider the different types of tasks we do and if some of us are in long terms maybe give us a better regulation, not the one applied to short term tasks which is incompatible

[marafx]

This to me is 100% updated today
http://prntscr.com/vx10th
But same day update on public profile instead shows
http://prntscr.com/vx11gh

I told the guys in support- they claim the update is not complete
weird... very very weird

[prestonhunter]

You should not be contacting Upwork Customer Support about this.

Are you taking up Upwork Customer Support's time to complain about a 100% JSS score??

[tlsanders]

Seems to me they are working to ensure that ratings and JSS have some meaning and some degree of credibility with clients. Thus, the freelancer can remove no more than 10% of feedback. That makes a lot of sense to me. 

[wlyonsatl]

Antonia,

If your average client relationship runs for many months or even years, you could ask your clients to close their projects, give you feedback and then re-start under a new contract with the same client under the same terms.

If you did this on a daily basis Upwork might think you're trying to manipulate your Job Success Score. But I am not aware of any prohibition against occasionally getting feedback and continuing to work for the same client. In fact, being re-hired by the same client appears to have a positive effect on the JSS calculation. Being re-hired by a client can be the best indicator of all for how satisfied the client has been with your work for them. 

[abinadab-agbo]

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Will L wrote:

Antonia,

If your average client relationship runs for many months or even years, you could ask your clients to close their projects, give you feedback and then re-start under a new contract with the same client under the same terms.

If you did this on a daily basis Upwork might think you're trying to manipulate your Job Success Score...

Closing contracts and reopening them, even daily, would not qualify as feedback manipulation.

Irregardless, it wouldn't be a feasible strategy for OP, given the nature of her contracts, and that she wants to remain Top Rated Plus, with 100% JSS, AND the same quarterly access to the perk as most Top Rated working with many, lower value contracts do.

Indeed, I reckon the OP's is quite an ask.

She would like to have her cake and eat it. But life rarely works that way.

[moonraker]

As mentioned, having fewer contracts may mean you don't have access to the perk as often - but it also means you are less exposed to the risk of a bad review. You can't have your cake and eat it.

I've had to take on more jobs lately due to a larger client dropping out and have experienced just that. One didn't go well; they left a 4.45 review and I dropped to 97%. This is something that would not have happened had I not lost my long term client. 

But that's fine and no way am I going to use my perk on this one. I sometimes wonder if losing a few points could be beneficial because it looks more realistic.