Re: Wild idea

jordonbaade · ‎04-17-2020

What if, and hear me out, you implemented actual security features on your website to reduce spam listings?

I just spend this morning flagging every post asking for pure commission work. All it took me was searching the word "commission". Imagine the collective time you'd save automatically flagging posts for commission for review before posting them on your site.

I can assure you I'm flagging them anyway, so they'll all need to be reviewed (at least that's what you guys say happens, not confident in that myself), so the extra manual step of review coupled with a clear message should overall reduce the amount of labor required by your company and by Upwork Freelancers.

A message like, "Hey we noticed you're asking for commission based work, which goes against our ToS, we'll be reviewing your post before listing or you can edit or remove it." Would help cut down on the posts so people like me and the other good Freelancers of Upwork don't have to spend their time managing your company. Would give a chance for the person themselves to manage the post reducing the need for any review at all.

You could also put flagged posts into a pool to be checked against, so once again, the good Freelancers of Upwork don't need to volunteer their time to make your platform bearable. You could then run any new account listings, at least - if not all of them, against your confirmed spammed listings and show a similar response.

This is basically spam control 101, and part of the reason I'm suspsicious your company is acting in unethical ways. You've yet to implement anything in these respects and have only made it harder to flag certain types of posts.

prestonhunter · ‎04-17-2020

Jordon: Upwork already does this. Clearly it does not do so perfectly yet. But there are already automated filters and checks performed on job posts based on their content.

jordonbaade · ‎04-20-2020

Preston H wrote:
Jordon: Upwork already does this. Clearly it does not do so perfectly yet. But there are already automated filters and checks performed on job posts based on their content.

Obviously not very well if it's missing surges of posts all containing the same keywords and phrases or just posts with super obvious phrases - I mean I saw a post the other day that verbatim said 'free work'. A proper spam system should allow you to add a new phrase to auto-flag pretty easily. This isn't rocket science, it's failing to simply compare strings. If we were talking about posts asking for 'F233 W02K' and other various nonsense to skirt those checks, yeah sure, that's an acceptable level of 'not working perfectly'. This isn't that though.

VladimirG · ‎04-17-2020

Hi Jordon,

To clarify, commission-based jobs aren't prohibited by Upwork ToS as long as they are structured as Fixed-Price contracts. Note that our team will review the jobs you've flagged and will take action against those that are found to be in violation of Upwork ToS.

~ Vladimir

jordonbaade · ‎04-20-2020

I said pure commission, as in commission-only. Your company allows commission-only jobs? So anyone with a terrible product can come here to seek people to sell said product and as long as no sales are made then that person doesn't have to pay out? That is free work, and just begging to be abused.

How exactly would I keep track of commission-only or base pay + commission work through your system, even via fixed priced jobs, so that it is protected by your Terms of Service? How do you setup milestones for commissions in a way that works well with your system? As far as I can tell, you can not.

Vladimir G wrote:
Hi Jordon,

To clarify, commission-based jobs aren't prohibited by Upwork ToS as long as they are structured as Fixed-Price contracts. Note that our team will review the jobs you've flagged and will take action against those that are found to be in violation of Upwork ToS.