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penguinpete
Community Member

UpWork needs to clean house or go the way of the dinosaur

**Edited for Community Guidelines**  I might as well start a whole thread then and really get it out in the open!

 

How about booting the spammers, scammers, pyramid schemes, cheats, flakes, thugs, and criminals off your alleged workplace platform???

 

Check my creds, I'm told over and over on here what a rockstar VIP I am. Check my history, how often do I even speak up? Check my record: I was grandfathered into UpWork from the oDesk-eLance merger, where I turned after Rent-A-Coder sold out, which I'd joined at the turn of the century, at which time I'd already been doing business for years. Check my jobs: My contracts typically last years.

 

Do you understand that there are people trying to make a FULL-TIME LIVING in this business? We can't get by on Fiverr-sized one-shot nickel jobs. I have a career to look out for. It's older than this company. I happily fork over a _% commission for the convenience of a third-party escrow and a file / message drop. All UpWork has to do is sit back and rake that in.

 

Now you tell me, as a professional,**Edited for Community Guidelines**  https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Site-Downtime-Feb-27th-at-8am-PST/td-p/871687  

 

**Edited for Community Guidelines** 

 

but playing spammer whack-a-mole is not the answer.

 

The answer is locked-down site security. Not "well if you see anything report it!" You have ID and video verification and CATCHAs. You can implement a lot more. There is no excuse for the crooks to be there for me to see to report in the first place.

 

So many proposals I see on here are garbage that would shame an image board. Every time I ask clients, it turns out I was the only coherent reply they got, the rest were bots and scammers.

 

Month by month, I feel pushed out of UpWork to make way for these nickel jobs, one-shot garbage, spam and scams. I don't get it, you guys make hundreds a year off me for doing nothing but keeping the lights on, but you'd rather drive me away to coddle your precious thieving rats? I got invited to a pyramid scheme today by an "Enterprise Talent Solutions Team" who claimed to "recruit on behalf of Fortune 500 companies." She just insisted that my profile (which she obviously didn't read) made me a perfect match for this plum opportunity.

 

You guys are worried about "competing with Fiverr"? Try staying ahead of FreeLancer.com first! You are where you are today because Freelancer.com died from its bad reputation for being an infested spam ghetto. Ever heard of "learning from others' mistakes"?

 

In this business, I've seen 'em come and I've seen 'em go! You are GOING! Now if that makes me the bad guy for pointing that unpleasant truth out, you go right ahead and delete me. "Shoot the messenger" is a strategy that ALWAYS works out, isn't it?

 

22 REPLIES 22
jr-translation
Community Member


Pete T wrote:

 

 Punctuation is still the same in every language.


I do not care about the rest you wrote, but this statement is wrong.

The spirit and not letter of that statement is that all languages have *some* convention for organizing and presenting a thought in a coherent way, even if not all of them have a "¿" at the beginning of a question just like Spanish.

 

But... I looked it up just to check. Yes, there are languages with continuous run-on sentences in a style linguists call "scriptura continua." You win the technical point.

 

Pete, yes, you share the platform with "people like that" and you share a planet with "people like that".

 

What you don't do is share contracts with them, so there is no need to wash off anything. I find your perceived superiority quite deeply distasteful by the way. It's essentially just the luck of your birth that differentiates you from "people like that".

Oh boy my favorite game! Let's play the RACE card!

 

You name any country. Are you telling me you can't find professional people in that country? Are you telling me other countries don't have libraries and schools and infrastructure? Even the war-torn little countries do. There is no excuse. I, and presumably anybody here who has completed five projects, can log onto any board in any language for any purpose and *NOT* come off as a petty thug.

 

It's not an "accident of birth." My point, very clearly, is not that these are non-Americans. It is that they are the criminal underbelly of ANY country.

 


Pete T wrote:

anybody here who has completed five projects, can log onto any board in any language for any purpose and *NOT* come off as a petty thug.


Why don't you try that for a change?

growmyretail
Community Member

There is a time in any business and their framework, that they have to pivot into a direction to make ends meet.
If Instagram did not pivot they would not exist today, and they would have been shelved by the time I sat with them in a bar over drinks in SF by the time I woke up. They went from 100 users to 40 000 users in 24 hours once they actually figured out what to do.

There was a time that YouTube was an actual dating platform, and they pivoted as well into what they are today.

Product development also is a process that goes from
Concept
Research
Analysis
Dev
Launch

So that means Upwork has placed all those steps into play to see if this was a correct move and pivot. My opinion stays neutral. 

The problem is that everyone compares their catalogue with Fiverrr, because that was the benchmark for a gig and cheap delivered work. 

I can only hope that this was only part of their roadmap to make it better than other competitors so the added value would elevate and amplify growth for UpWork in the correct way.

Combating spammers, or fake freelancers or bots or whatever label you want to give is and will always be a never-ending story. A client with half a brain will see through it. 

The last thing a platform like UW wants is a flood of those because it would devalue its market position.


Do not forget that EBITDA and UW path to profitability is still minus. Unless you can bankroll them? increase their post money value and give them resources to speed up this process?

Do not forget their framework is a mix (I repeat from before) a B2MX SaaS model, with HR/Recruitment and talent and brokering services in a safe manner.

SaaS alone is already challenging enough. Let alone B2M SaaS. Should UW place more resources into security and prevention, compliance and DD? Probably, but like any business model on such scale you have bottlenecks and growing pains 24/7

I share your frustrations about the "the spammers, scammers, pyramid schemes, cheats, flakes, thugs, and criminals" but I don't understand your focus on grammar and punctuation - what has that got to do with anything? If you're implying that only ESL speakers fall into these categories, then I can see why Upwork removed your previous post.


Christine A wrote:

 I can see why Upwork removed your previous post.


It is here and has been heavily edited. 

This just comes over as hateful - even if there is a reasonable point attached to it. Probably not the best way to try and make a point because people are only likely to focus on the obnoxiousness instead. 

> "I don't understand your focus on grammar and punctuation"

 

Communication is a professional skill in any language, background, or position. There's a big focus on this in K-12 education. You explain to me why we do that, I'm all ears.

 


Pete T wrote:

> "I don't understand your focus on grammar and punctuation"

 

Communication is a professional skill in any language, background, or position. There's a big focus on this in K-12 education. You explain to me why we do that, I'm all ears.

 


There is thing called soft skills which includes communication, but that does not require to be flawless in grammar in any language but to be able to communicate with other people.

"If you're implying that only ESL speakers fall into these categories..."

 

Said the website with the big green "US ONLY" button at the top of the job search filters. Could you explain to me why that's there? I'm all ears.

 

I specifically said that having English as a second language is no excuse, because that's the first thing thrown in my face every time I bring up standards. If you're assuming a connection between professional standards and race/nationality, that's on you. I meet people every day who presumably speak English as their first language and still communicate at the protozoa level.

 


Pete T wrote:I meet people every day who presumably speak English as their first language and still communicate at the protozoa level.

 


Let them. They're not your problem. And do you rage at them face to face too? Or do you stand at a street corner on a soap box venting, screaming at the top of your voice, in the style of your posts here? Or do you reserve that for situations when you are nice and safe behind a computer screen?

 

How many languages do you speak fluently by the way?

 

Pete T wrote:

Said the website with the big green "US ONLY" button at the top of the job search filters.


No, "the website" doesn't say that. You do understand how to tell "the website" and your fellow website users apart, right? If not, feel free to ask and we can explain it to you in nice simple terms.


Petra R wrote:

Let them. They're not your problem. And do you rage at them face to face too? Or do you stand at a street corner on a soap box venting, screaming at the top of your voice, in the style of your posts here?

 

Perhaps. Maybe he's one of those lovely people we sometimes see in videos on social media who scream at strangers in the grocery store for speaking their native language to their family members and spray spittle while demanding that they "go back where they came from." 

It's fascinating how often a person's forum contributions completely belie the talents and expertise presumed by his or her professional category. For instance, I always expect someone who writes marketing material for a living will articulate their own viewpoint, regardless of what it is, in a way that's calculated to engage, persuade, at least inspire thoughtful consideration; instead of unfurling a wall of prose that seems intentionally to affront, abrade, and/or prompt ready dismissal. Unless, of course, that is the intent.

 


Pete T wrote:

"If you're implying that only ESL speakers fall into these categories..."

 

Said the website with the big green "US ONLY" button at the top of the job search filters. Could you explain to me why that's there? I'm all ears.


I'm not sure what you're getting at, despite your VIP rockstar communication abilities. Are you saying that a US-only marketplace is necessary because nobody outside of America can speak English properly? 

 


Pieter B wrote:

There is a time in any business and their framework, that they have to pivot into a direction to make ends meet.

 

Upwork HAS pivoted. They have simply pivoted in a direction that is not the one you would have chosen--focusing on large clients and shifting resources away from the minor players. 

 

That's not great for me, either, but that doesn't mean it won't be profitable for Upwork. 

I love it when people show their stripes on the internet for all clients to see. 

kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Pete,

 

We appreciate you sharing your concerns. Trust & Safety on the platform is definitely very important and something we're constantly working on improving. We have teams that review job postings and profiles against Upwork TOS and take action when violations are confirmed. Feel free to use the flag option to report content, jobs or profiles that you believe are inappropriate, suspicious or may be in violation of Upwork TOS. Check out this help article on how to do that.

 

That said, Upwork is a global platform. There are freelancers from all over the world with various levels of English language proficiency who've been able to win jobs, deliver great results, earn money and have better lives. While we always encourage freelancers to work on their communication skills to be successful on the platform, there are plenty of jobs that don't require native or even fluent level of English proficiency.  

 

I'd also like to note that being disrespectful toward other members of this Community and making personal attacks based on a user's English, lack of knowledge, experience of Upwork platform or any other disparaging comments aren't allowed. Any such content may be edited or removed. I encourage the participants of this discussion to review our Community Guidelines and adhere to them as they continue posting on these boards.

~ Valeria
Upwork

Those who can discover my surname and reflect upon the likely national origin of that name, especially applying historic knowledge, may join me in chuckling at the irony of this "priviledge of birth" accusation I'm hearing.

 

Me, *I* think it's even *MORE* bigoted to point to the lowest common denominator of any people and say "They can't help it, they're $ETHNIC / come from $ECONOMICALLY-CHALLENGED-COUNTRY." There are people from the same country who fought their way up from the trenches of poverty only to be called "elitist" for having done so. When you insist that the bums on the streets of that country are the very best that country can do, you have insulted every productive citizen in that country.

 

In summary, before this thread got derailed: I keep pointing out accounts which did, indeed, violate terms enough to get suspended and removed. Every time I point to them, that gets moderated out of the comment. Nevertheless, site policy agrees with me that that offender should not have been here. The only point of contention is at what point we stop them. I say "ounce of prevention." I say whatever is being done, is not enough. I'm not *just* singling ESL speakers, because any bot can copy and paste Webster's-perfect English into a comment form, as I pointed out at the (now moderated) very beginning.

 

> "there are plenty of jobs that don't require native or even fluent level of English proficiency."

 

I know this. You know this. It is common sense.

 

Clients don't always know this. Shareholders don't always know this. HR people don't always know this. Reputation counts on platforms like these. That's one more immutable law of nature. You don't want to turn away people who type with a hammer and create 50 bogus accounts per day, but there's people from the same neighborhood who are doing better, and they're the ones you're not seeing.

 

Anyway, it's been fun, maybe I'll visit again. Figured I'd give it a try. If I didn't care, I wouldn't try.

 


Pete T wrote:

 

In summary, before this thread got derailed: I keep pointing out accounts which did, indeed, violate terms enough to get suspended and removed.

 


As I've already said, I agree that freelancers who break the ToS and are involved in scams etc. should be removed from the platform. You derailed your own thread by turning it into a rant about people who don't speak English very well. 

kochubei_valeria
Community Member

All,

 

A number of posts and replies have been removed from this thread and the thread has now been closed.

~ Valeria
Upwork
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