Asking a customer a Question about project before bidding? Can't do it?

[zarklon]

Seems like we shoul be able to ask a question about the project posted before bidding..

For example: Do you need a male or female presenter/voice for your video?  Etc..

Most employers don't put a lot of detail into their posts.. And it doesnt give them a heck of a lot of incentive to do so as they'll be flooded with potential candidates anyway and can sift through them.... However , at the cost of the bidder/freelancer..   Soo..  That doesnt seem very fair accounting for the fact that over half the time I dont even receive a response from the employer or a reason given for declining my bid.

If they wanted a certain accent or gender from their freelancer... simply leaving that out of the job offer costs many people a lot of money if you add it all up. And sometimes up to $1 per bid..  

Am I missing something here?  Why is this not a thing?  What do you all think? 

[feed_my_eyes]

Yes, it's very annoying, but when there was a message board like this on Elance (before they merged with Upwork) people just used it to spam clients and beg to be hired. So, Upwork won't be bringing this back. (It's always a few dumb freelancers who ruin it for everyone else.)

FWIW, even when freelancers did ask legitimate questions, clients mostly ignored them and didn't respond, so it wasn't a helpful feature anyway. (I estimate that clients only responded to requests for clarifications maybe 5% of the time - if that.) I eventually came to the conclusion that clients with extremely vague job descriptions aren't usually serious about hiring, so I stopped bidding on these jobs. But others here will tell you that they ask questions in their proposals and have gotten some really good clients that way. Do whatever works for you - if you find that it's not worth your time, then just skip those jobs.

[zarklon]

Ahh.. I see your point. Thanks for your feedback.  I hate the idea that a few ruin it for many .. I just look at what freelancer is doing and they have a system im place to "punish" you for self promoting.   There just needs to be a report button and some consequences.  All could be handled by code until someone racks up enough reports to get a spanking after a human reviews the circumstances.  Simply disable their ability to ask client questions... they shoot themselves in the foot or make new accounts.  Then it becomes a matter of keeping the bots away I guess.. But I dont see that being a problem on freelancer anyway. 

[sethmeshko]

This knits into my question about why we have to buy connects to then have Upwork make money off of us again in fees.

Anyway, I was going to ask this exact same question.  Christine was openly rude to me on my post, but she seems to be very helpful here.  Thanks Christine!

[prestonhunter]

Devin: I think Christine already said all that needs to be said about this.

But in case you are interested in reading more, you can search for this topic in the Forum. There are probably dozens of threads in which the same question has been asked and answered. Some of these threads go on for many pages.

[kengel]

So what you're saying is you're already well aware of the problem and the fact that many of your users would like a solution but you don't care. Makes sense. 

[prestonhunter]

re: "So what you're saying is you're already well aware of the problem and the fact that many of your users would like a solution but you don't care. Makes sense."

You are characterizing it as a "problem."

As someone who uses the site both as a freelancer and a client, I don't find this to be a problem.

I like the way that it is.

As a client, I know how to create good job postings.
As a freelancer, I see plenty of great job posts.

The possible solutions that have been discussed would cause more problems than they would solve.

What change do you suggest that would benefit users of the site without causing a big problem for clients who would be pestered by inappropriate freelancers?