New Categories?

[Ronald T]

Regarding the latest banner on the core site "Pardon our dust! We're making some changes to our categories, starting with a few that we've reorganized and added"....

Where, when, what....?

Anyone have more info about the new categories?

[Gyan D]

Same reaction here. It also had a link to a survey, which is kinda premature. I don't see any blog post either.

[Valeria K]

Hello Ron and Gyan,

Sorry about the confusion. We will be sharing more information about the upcoming changes in the categories in the next several weeks. Stay tuned for notifications and blog posts about it.

Thank you for your interest.

[Stephen B]

Then with respect, Valeria, what is the point of having half our screens cluttered up with a message asking us to tell oDesk what we think about something that we can't see because it doesn't exist yet, when nothing is even ever done when we tell them what we think about things that have been implemented?

[Ronald T]

I venture to guess that the upcoming category changes on the core site might involve the Elance categories that now appear in the Community "Job Skill Discussions" area. That is, if it all relates to my previous posts about that topic. Hence, that might explain why the "Job Skill Discussions" area has not been put fully into operation.

[Dianne M]

All I can think of is the horror that will come out of this new categories with the robots etc. 

I don't get why the survey is up when the categories aren't available yet.

How will this affect our core skills and past job categories? How will this affect our freelancer standings?

Why?

Why?

Are we there yet?

Why?

Are we there yet?

I want a cookie.

[Ronald T]

Hi Dianne M !

I wasn't going to bring it up, yet I too am concerned about negative effects any category changes might have as they might relate to the "mad robots" aka algorithms.

I still believe that the current search for jobs feature available for freelancers and the search for freelancers feature available for clients are both problematic at best.

Freelancers' selection of pertinent, relevant skills still play an important factor in searches. However, I am not sure how job categories and especially sub-categories affect search outcomes.

The only thing that makes sense to me is if oDesk has plans to eventually launch an entirely new core site; one that matches the lime green header bar as seen on all new oDesk Web pages these days.

Despite having asked a few times about any plans for a new site, I don't recall reading anything from oDesk about that possibility. Personally, I hope that is what they have planned for the future. I for one would welcome an entirely new site...well, if it works better than the current site....

[Dianne M]

I believe so too that an entirely new core site will be best as I don't think they even know how to fix the existing bugs - some of which has been around for more than a year.

[Stephen B]

"Why?

Why?

Are we there yet?

Why?

Are we there yet?

I want a cookie."

The problem/real question is:

"Are we where yet?

Reminds me of a song (Fruupp 1977 ish)

"Well I know that I don't know where I'm going

but I know that I'll know when I get there.

I don't know where I'm at - I don't really care.

I just know I'm here, and I'll know I'm there...

and I didn't know I knew..."

I dread this eventual introduction - I have no faith whatever that it will in any way function to make things better for anybody. Sorry if that sounds negative, but it's the way I feel about practically everything that's been introduced in the last year. Asking what we think about new "innovations" has been pointless ands fruitless, so they may as well ask before it's introduced - get it over and done with 

[Garnor M]

Hi Dianne,

As mentioned by Valeria, we'll sharing more details about these updates soon. We are taking great care to ensure minimum disruption to your work history, profiles, etc. and will certainly allow you to maintain control over your job categories. 

-Garnor