Current Community Updates and Planning for the Year Ahead

[StanG]

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’ve been implementing new features, testing new layouts, and moving fast to make updates to the community. I can promise we have nothing but the best of intentions. 

Our goal is to make this platform a space* for any Upwork user:

• To ask a question without fear of retaliation
• Start a discussion and get to know fellow members,
• Start or join a group of like-minded people
• Host and Attend events
• Write an article
• Share cool things they are working on

We are continuing to work through testing different pieces—we know there will be bumps in the road. We ask that you give us a year. 

Give us the remainder of 2022 to make improvements throughout the community. We aren’t silencing you; we want your constructive feedback! If you can see an opportunity to improve an experience, please share it with us! If there is something you’ve always wanted to see in Community, tell us!

Many members may have felt silenced or feared sharing their ideas—we want to hear from you! Upwork has a diverse group of people on the platform that ranges in industry, skill level, experience, and location–we feel all have a voice that should be amplified.  

In the past two weeks (and today), we have made several changes: 

• Updated the navigation and removed “content corner.” The new locations are as follows: Topical articles will now be posted in the Community blog, Anything product-related will be published in product updates, and Announcements (like this) from Community and the greater company will live here. 
• We added a new support forum where we will continue building user shares workarounds to common account issues, updates on bug reports, and more. 
• We removed the “feedback” forum from the navigation. We know you all hated that. But as each thread was only specific to a product launch, it did not make sense to maintain it in the main menu. With that said- and as noted above-we are still working on alternative solutions! One of them is launching an idea exchange where you can provide feedback on specific products to wish list ideas and vote on them. We are listening. 
• Just like the Dinosaurs, all ranks are now extinct (for the time being). We’re currently working with Dr. Chang to bring back ranks but with more information on how to get to new levels and many more levels in between. It’ll be fun, and you won’t need to start all over…but the guru rank is gone forever.
• We’ve opened up the blog to allow any community member to submit an article (woohoo). You can read all about it here. 
• Academy is live! Visit our new space filled with new to Upwork courses and education. 

Phew - that’s a lot! We are also working on a new header, footer, and homepage design launching in late April. 

Scams

We know this continues to be a pain point, and we are listening. The Trust and Safety teams are working to mitigate this ongoing infestation. Please know that we share every thread and new comment from the community with all those involved. 

We are working to pass things on, and we are sorry that it has come to users building their own plugins–however, we are also in awe at your ingenuity to go and make something to help. That’s what we want for this community–members helping members—coming up with quick solutions. We will continue to work with our teams to bring things like this to light and look for ways to support our members to ensure they get the recognition and superhero cape they deserve. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from the Halo community directory that summarizes this nicely:

“We understand the community is simply out of patience and frankly, I think understandably tired of words. We just need some time for the team to get the details sorted, and then we can certainly share as much as we can.” 

What’s next

So much. We know that notifications of changes are not a strong suit, and we are working to improve that broader communication (oddly enough, with design and layout changes). 

We hope to get a community 2022 road map up within 60 days to give all a birds-eye view of what’s to come. But for now, please know we are your friends; we are not the enemy. We want to help you, amplify your concerns and ideas, and provide a safe space for discussion. 

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.  

* We’re aware that not everyone will use every feature.

[researchediting]

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Stan G wrote:

• We removed the “feedback” forum from the navigation. We know you all hated that. But as each thread was only specific to a product launch, it did not make sense to maintain it in the main menu. With that said- and as noted above-we are still working on alternative solutions! One of them is launching an idea exchange where you can provide feedback on specific products to wish list ideas and vote on them. We are listening. 

Not sure what you think we hated—the existence of the forum or its removal from navigation (hint: relative pronouns are not your friends).
"It did not make sense to maintain it in the main menu" when people are telling you they want it back in the main menu? I do wonder sometimes if anyone at Upwork knows the term "user experience."

"Still working on alternatives solutions"? And the wheel reinvention machine goes round and round.

[8296a91a]

Stan, there's gotta be a better way to address the pervasive scams that are saturating nearly every work section than quoting a videogame forum. I don't feel silenced when I read something like that. It just feels condescending.

We are not playing a multiplayer shooter. We're professionals trying to network, secure contracts, and get work done. Some of us are even paying extra every month beyond the slice of our payments that Upwork keeps. There's a growing sentiment both here in this community and elsewhere on the internet that Upwork is either A. unwilling to take serious steps to enforce their own Terms of Service on the client end of things, or B. unable to be more clear and upfront about what exactly is the nature of problem, be it technical or something more central to Upwork's business model. Perhaps both are happening, depending on who is making a thread about it.

in the interests of being constructive, I think it would be most appreciated if there was a more fulsome explanation of what the Trust and Safety teams suspect is the root of the problem from their much better vantage point internally and provide concrete details on the strategies they are considering to address this obvious pain point in a mass email. I got an email today from Upwork patting itself on the back for all the great plans they have for providing stronger visibility and connections for the upcoming year, but there was predictably nothing in there about this very current, very frustrating barrier to both of those goals. And if that email can't be prepared in the next 72 hours, then perhaps setting an actual deadline instead of some nebulous future time could signal that this is a priority and not a minor inconvenience to be brushed away with boilerplate comments.

Asking for continued patience and suggesting that the community is tired of words is an unfortunate misread of the room. We really do want words, words that articulate what is happening and what is going to be done, not promises about sharing community posts and strange divergences into superhero capes.

Please, take this a liitle more seriously.

[5510af19]

That's Great!!