Private feedback affects Freelancers pubic rating but not clients

[kevashcroft]

Had an interesting chat with support this morning regarding what happens when you and a client decide there isn't a good fit between you.

A mutual decision that it's best not to continue.

There is no way to simply cancel the contract even when no payments have been made.

You have to close the contract as you normally would. When you do this, the support team confirmed that you won't leave public feedback, only private feedback as no money has been exchanged.

When you go through the process of leaving private feedback, the interesting outcome of this is that any negative feedback the client leaves affects the public rating of a freelancer, however, if a freelancer leaves negative feedback, it does not affect the public rating of the client.

As someone who operates as a freelancer, agency, and client on Upwork, it seems completely unfair and simply wrong that only one party is affected by the feedback.

Two things I suggest make sense here.

1. If both freelancer/agency and the client decide they simply want to cancel the contract and both confirm that to support. There is no need to go through the feedback process. Just simply cancel it.

2. If a freelancer's rating will be affected by negative private feedback, the same should apply to the client.

[2e395a62]

No match means no match - nothing to go around town and gossip about. I would second the concept of no feedback option if the contract is canceled before any work was done and payment made.