Remove Feedback from Work History?

[andy-hill]

Good morning, Community.

I was wondering if it's possible to remove empty feedback (star rating only) from my freelancer work history? The project was ongoing (rolling milestones) but the client kept closing after each job. It terminated properly yesterday, and he left some written feedback, which is great. But the empty feedback before it looks a tad messy on my client feedback line (see attached image), hence this message.

Andy H

[steve-d]

Worse things to worry about than all those 5 star ratings cluttering up your profile!

[petra_r]

---

Andy H wrote:

I was wondering if it's possible to remove empty feedback (star rating only) from my freelancer work history? 

---

I am at a loss what you would want to remove? The only way to remove them would be to refund them in full. 

It isn't "empty" feedback. It's 5 star feedback. 5 star feedback is great.

[andy-hill]

Fair enough, guys. It's just that I prefer to have—and mostly do have—written feedback, which has more value than just a star rating, hence my post.

Andy

[martina_plaschka]

---

Andy H wrote:

Fair enough, guys. It's just that I prefer to have—and mostly do have—written feedback, which has more value than just a star rating, hence my post.

Andy

---

Then ask the client to write some in the future. It might have more value to you, but in upwork terms, it don't matter a thing. Actually, even the stars are mainly just window-dressing. What really counts is private feedback. 

[andy-hill]

They did write feedback on the completion of the final milestone, Martina.

Feedback isn't just window dressing, it can mean the difference between winning or losing a bid for new work. I'm sure most 'potential' clients view a freelancer's feedback before putting you on their shortlist.

Andy H

[tlbp · Accepted solution]

If you refund the money for each of those contracts, they won't appear on your work history at all. All neat and tidy. 

[petra_r]

---

Andy H wrote:

Feedback isn't just window dressing, it can mean the difference between winning or losing a bid for new work. I'm sure most 'potential' clients view a freelancer's feedback before putting you on their shortlist.

---

If they do, they don't care whether there are outcomes without verbiage. They just don't want poor comments.

Why would you want to remove them? How can contracts with perfect feedback (5 stars) be worse than none? 

You can, if you really want to make the client jump throuh hoops (I wouldn't dream of doing so)enable the client to change their feedback and add some verbiage. It is not something I would recommend but that way you could get some (pretty superflous) words.

---

Andy H wrote:

They did write feedback on the completion of the final milestone

---

Those contracts were contracts, not milestones. Otherwise they wouldn't have feedback (5 stars).

[martina_plaschka]

---

Andy H wrote:

They did write feedback on the completion of the final milestone, Martina.

Feedback isn't just window dressing, it can mean the difference between winning or losing a bid for new work. I'm sure most 'potential' clients view a freelancer's feedback before putting you on their shortlist.

Andy H

---

Right, I was talking about your JSS rating. 

I agree potential clients will look at your work history. But your question was specifically about "removing". You can have feedback removed when you are top-rated, which means that the job still shows up with "this feedback was removed." You can imagine how bad that would look. Otherwise a job disappears when you refund, as has been mentioned. So in short, it's still what we in Austria call a luxury problem. 

[colettelewis]

Andy,

You have an all-star, all dancing profile and the written feedback is glowing! This is like sending all your presents back to Father Christmas, because he didn't write you a card! 

[steve-d]

Andy, jokes aside, I do sympathize. You are a perfectionist who rightfully takes pride in his profile. One other thing to consider: could this actually be good for your JSS?  Presumably you are now getting three client recommendations for this job instead of one. Not sure how the mysterious JSS algorithm works (e.g. weighting each project based on price?) but this could be beneficial by increasing your proportion of client recommendations.  

[martina_plaschka]

---

Stephen D wrote:

Andy, jokes aside, I do sympathize. You are a perfectionist who rightfully takes pride in his profile. One other thing to consider: could this actually be good for your JSS?  Presumably you are now getting three client recommendations for this job instead of one. Not sure how the mysterious JSS algorithm works (e.g. weighting each project based on price?) but this could be beneficial by increasing your proportion of client recommendations.  

---

What do you mean? What recommendations? How can he get 3 recommendations for one job, and again, what do you mean by that?

[steve-d]

Hi Martina, forgive me if I have the terminology wrong or am fundamentally misunderstanding something here. 

My understanding from Andy's comment is that this was intended as a single job/project with multiple milestones, but the client effectively turned it into three jobs. He writes: "The project was ongoing (rolling milestones) but the client kept closing after each job"

So instead of leaving a single review for the job, and a single recommendation (score out of 10), it appears he effectively received three instead. Does that make sense?

[andy-hill]

Thanks, everybody.

Other people's perspectives can be valuable. See, just because I think something is right or wrong, that doesn't mean it is. It just means I THINK it is. Thanks to the responses here, I can see that I was perhaps majoring in minor things. If a few 5-star ratings are the biggest problem in my life today... well, I'm in pretty good shape, all things considered

It's like Jimmy Cliff once sang, "I can see clearly now..."

Have a great weekend.

Andy H