Clarification questions
I submitted two clarification questions on jobs that had vague descriptions.
3 hours have passed and the questions haven't appeared for answering.
Oh well! I can write that potential work off then!
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Official comment
Many thanks for your suggestions. I will pass it on to our product team.
Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.
Gordon, if you provide the ID number of the job I can look into a potential reason for the delay.
Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.
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There's no rhyme or reason to it, is there? Really frustrating. I also note that you now don't seem to be able to reply to a client's answer if you have further questions. It's just rejected out of hand. Come on, PPH - that's as frustrating for Buyer as it is Seller; they're potentially missing out on a wider pool of freelancers who might be the right person for the job!
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I'm "fighting" with that dummy issue (with delayed clarifications) for 1,5+ year at this moment. Pretty much messages sent to PPH-team, many abuses, many requests to support = zero result sadly.
In my experiences: 2 to 8 hours of delay before of publishing my clarification-requests. And sometimes "moderated"-message instead. Then request "why it has been moderated" and answer like "sorry, by mistake, your message was restored".
Frustrating as a hell. Really.
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It's a shame as I thought the site was working very well when it came to seller/buyer communication. Now just a complete pain. I can't risk wasting a bid on a job which has an extremely vague description. It beggars belief that there are people out there willing to bid on a job that says something like: 'I need CAD visuals'. How can you bid accurately with a description like this. You have to ask for clarification. Then it takes many hours for 'moderation' and by then the chance is lost as being quick to bid means a lot. It would help if buyers had their posts 'moderated' to reduce the need for clarification.
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There was a writing job a day or so back (doesn't really matter which, as there are several per day of this type) which merely said "I need an experienced writer for ongoing work".
I have a copy/paste clarification question for jobs like those, worded as follows:
Hi,
Would love to help, however:
Word count?
Subject matter?
Deadline?
Budget?Look forward to hearing from you.
Twice in the past week, I've had that rejected as not passing moderation. Why?
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I keep a track of every clarification I send, to see if:
1: It's replied to, and
2: The job is eventually awarded.
"Gordon, if you provide the ID number of the job I can look into a potential reason for the delay."
Not a delay. Simple fact is that many jobs are either fake, or tyre kickers.
Clarifications currently at 95%+ not replied to, and ~85% non awarded.
And yes, the standard of 'moderation' is appaling. If I put 'Have you the a budget', or 'You have many proposals can I show you my portfolio', it's approved, when this is a blatant attempt to bypass proposals... but any valid / long query with questions for the buyer is rejected. Happened twice today already...
PPH on a steady downward spiral...
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Stephen, that's a great idea - I'm going to start doing that.
In my charitable moments, I describe it as "testing the market rate". Tyre-kickers also works.
PPH, if anyone happens to be looking, can I suggest the following - a Buyer account has to maintain a 70% 'jobs awarded' target (and must award their first job) or is for the boot.
That would deal with the majority of fake jobs without anyone actually having to *do* anything.
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