About Contests

I find the the contests initiative great, especially for freelancers that are new on PPH. It is a chance to prove ones value.

There are some issues though that may discourage quality work.

- It feels as if the aproval process is done in an automated way. I have seen entries that are completely irrelevant to the project and were approved. One was a wedding template for a courier project, and had no relevant branding or at least the logo. On the same project my entry was rejected as irrelevant the first time. When I resubmitted it went through. I am ok if someone does not like my entry but it discourages participation if the system feels automated.

- A rating/feedback system from the buyer would be highly appreciated since it would encourage more participation and more relevance and quality in the submissions.

- I noticed that if I submit an entry that is less than around 1mb it gets rejected as "low quality content" even if it renders well. I had to figure this out myself. I wish there was better feedback on the reasons an entry is rejected.

- The rating system is not flawless. It has room for improvement. Some entries get rated really low although it is obvious that the freelancer has done a fairly good job whereas others have lots of positive reviews even though the quality is obviously low. This is not my subjective opinion. Elements that are completely misaligned in a website, don't need an eye for design to be noticed. The process of rating right now feels like anyone can get a bunch of friends to rate his entry highl.

- My suggestion would be to have minimum requirements for the rating system. for example for someone to rate they need to be either the buyer (this should be highly encouraged with their rating even been featured separately) or freelancers that have a minimum cert. I would be happy if any of these two categories even rejects an entry of mine as it would give me an incentive to submit a better one. Having people that are competing with me rating just ends up being unfair and I can't really take it seriously.

- An option for the buyer to end the contest early and award the project would also be welcome. Buyers would be able to submit contests even though they may be in hurry to get their website out.

Thanks for reading.