They should get rid of this bidding

[kbadeau]

Am I the only one who's bothered that UW shut the thread down? We give a good percentage of our earnings to them, in part for moderators for the forums. If they don't like our responses, they can delete them, but I'm not too keen on just closing down discussions.

Anyway, what I wanted to know is... everyone kept talking about spending "money" on boosting your proposal, but aren't connects free? I personally have never spent any money on boosting, but I have done it twice. Then yesterday there was a job I considered boosting but thought I'd see if I got a response without boosting, just for my own info. The job had 20-50 proposals which seems like is what I always see when I reply to a job post.

[tlsanders]

Beyond annoying. Shows the lie in any claim to care about freelancers' concerns or listen to our views. I guess it doesn't look good to the investors when people tell the truth in public.

[kochubei_valeria · Accepted solution]

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Kelly B wrote:

Am I the only one who's bothered that UW shut the thread down? We give a good percentage of our earnings to them, in part for moderators for the forums. If they don't like our responses, they can delete them, but I'm not too keen on just closing down discussions.

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Kelly and Tiffany,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'd like to address your note about the thread being closed. Yes, our moderators would occasionally close threads if the discussion moves into an unproductive direction despite public and private reminders to adhere to the Community Guidelines. 

We are grateful for feedback and the dialogue our community members engage in here. We encourage everyone to participate in discussions and provide feedback constructively. We understand that opinions differ and members won't always agree. However, we ask our members to refrain from personal attacks and disparaging comments when voicing dissent or criticism.

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Kelly B wrote:

Anyway, what I wanted to know is... everyone kept talking about spending "money" on boosting your proposal, but aren't connects free? I personally have never spent any money on boosting, but I have done it twice. Then yesterday there was a job I considered boosting but thought I'd see if I got a response without boosting, just for my own info. The job had 20-50 proposals which seems like is what I always see when I reply to a job post.

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Boosting requires Connects. Whether a freelancer chooses to purchase more Connects to boost their proposals or only use free ones is up to them.

[feed_my_eyes]

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Kelly B wrote:

Anyway, what I wanted to know is... everyone kept talking about spending "money" on boosting your proposal, but aren't connects free? I personally have never spent any money on boosting, but I have done it twice. Then yesterday there was a job I considered boosting but thought I'd see if I got a response without boosting, just for my own info. The job had 20-50 proposals which seems like is what I always see when I reply to a job post.

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We get 10 free connects per month, so that's only enough to bid on a maximum of 5 projects, and nowhere near enough for someone to boost even one bid. So yes, it costs money because people quickly run out of free connects and have to buy more. (I'm not complaining, just explaining.) 

[kbadeau]

You'd think I would know by now, but clearly I don't. I have 100+ connects so I didn't realize you only get 10 a month. I've been buried by a few book projects and repeat clients so I tend to only use connects when I get the message that I'm about to lose them.

[aafa4a2f]

They give you free connects at the begining

[williamtcooper]

Hey Kelly, Boosting of Posts works extremely well. Only Boost a job post if it is a very exacting job that you have a high probablity of winning, but need to be seen. Thanks!

[gilbert-phyllis]

Shutting down a thread like that makes perfect sense to me. When it reaches the point that nothing new is being said and comments are being consistently directed at individuals instead of the issue, a thread becomes a monumental time suck for the moderators. As long as substantive discussion is not removed (which it was not in this case IMO), then it's reasonable to put a lid on it. 

[kbadeau]

I hear ya, I just think other sites I've been on would moderate the *people*, via timeouts, or even banning them, rather than closing a thread to discussion. I guess it's fine because I just started a new thread but it seemed odd to me.

[aafa4a2f]

I cna udnerstand what you mean about "directed at individuals" definitly, it's not pro-active or helpful. However I must say I disagree with shutting it down still, regardless of it going anywhere it allows Upwork to realise their communities frustration. I also disagree that it's a "time suck" as I was on the previous thread and they responded to nearly no one, addressing none of the issues being raised.

[daiez]

I've been reading up on the forums as to this whole "Bidding scam" and so far almost all of the threads that are complaining about this system being a blatant way for UW to take more and more money and not actually help long time freelancers on the website, have been all closed/shut down as they say "With that, I'll be closing this thread from further responses." And not actually taking in the criticism and complaints of this platforms' users. People that have been on the website for a long time, are now finding it difficult to find jobs AT ALL because of this system of (for lack of a better term) "Pay to win", where anybody who is willing to spend more and more money on UW can just buy enough connects to be placed at #1 on all the jobs the apply too. Is this fair? Is this harmful to the community of freelancers? Honestly to UW it doesn't matter, because their pockets are just getting bigger.