New system aimed primarily at matching newer sellers with buyers
So now it seems I have to wait two hours before I can bid for a job. This is extremely unfair. Not only do experienced creatives/designers have to compete with an unfair playing field, ie people offered to do a job for £10 when it is clearly worth £100, we are now not allowed to bid for jobs as soon as they appear on PPH. What kind of system is this?!
Awful. Unfair. Unprofessional. Discriminatory.
Regards
C. Howe
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hi Paul
i meant 'public' within the context of anyone within the pph community who wants to join in can do so
and _ as i have stated in my request to Panos _ i believe there should be an outlet for people's frustrations
and that it helps to keep things healthier if people aren't afraid of being sanctioned simply for expressing themselves or for bringing pertinent 'outside' information to the discussion _
i have been admin and creator of several forums unrelated to pph in my past
and those responsibilities have included the necessity of removing / suspending / banning participants
but i am in complete agreement with you on this _ and i never banned or sanctioned anyone without warning them privately _ and publicly explaining the ban to others in the forum afterwards -
@Paul:
You are definitly right Paul. Beauty is in simplicity. Unfortunately today's admins think the more complex their platform, the more professional and facilitating it would be.
And about the sanctions you mentioned. Before this, I thought that such behaviors only appear in cruel authorities like my country, Iran. But now, I see such misbehaviors exist even in these most cultured contexts.....
Let me cut this boring complain. I was here to work and help my family's living. Not to pass every hour with stress and worry like I do in real world.
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No, just the forums.
Maik, we had a very vibrant forum provided by PPH but they pulled it without warning. It had loads of posts - one thread had hundreds if not over a thousand posts in it.
There were a lot of great ideas for PPH there, a lot of outright criticism (offensive on times), but really good constructive criticism.
The old forums took a massive load from PPH customer services. At one time on the forums I used to be accused of being a PPH employee because I might defend their actions.
Anyway PPH couldn't tolerate the heat.
I would say PPH should have a thumbs up for at least leaving this thread mostly be, even though I know not all posts have been published.
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Faryad I don't think it's fair to compare PPH to a political regime. PPH tries to present the best image possible and negative comments on a forum aren't always comfortable to them.
We can all remember we make money through PPH so it's a bittersweet relationship when they do daft things.
Nobody's getting put in jail.
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just received this response from pph support
posting as it clarifies what is not acceptable on the forum
(i think in this stream the point about not mentioning competition sites is the most relevant)Hello Maik
Thank you for your message.
I do apologize if I'm unable to provide a direct response. The truth is, I do not know who the user is, or what their comment was. If they've been deactivated then it means that the post has been deleted, and the content removed. As such, I'm unable to review the matter fully.
Having said that, I should clarify that PPH is open to all user feedback related to this, and any other feature, as long as it's constructive, and follows our terms and conditions. Posts that mention competitor sites, are unnecessarily aggressive, have foul language, etc. will not be tolerated by us. Again, I don't know the actual post, but for it to be deleted then I can only assume it violated one of these clauses.
We have allowed numerous users to post about the feature, and the community Q/A thread has now reached three pages. PPH is committed to allowing users to voice their opinion, we simply expect it to be done in a constructive, professional manner that might ultimately contribute to the improvement of the site.
I do hope this answers your question at least to some degree. I can assure you that we don't intend on censoring anyone, but there are cases in which it might become necessary.
My apologies for the inconvenience.
Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.
Thanks
Panos
PPH Senior Support Advisor -
@ Paul
Hi Paul,
I've never compared this or any other online community with a regime. You are interpreting what I said in a wrong way. Based on what you said, (I mean deactivating user accounts, deleting threads with no warning, etc.) I just put a blame on their previous behavior (if any) and just recalled of our current situation in this country where criticism results in death.
No one talked about jail or something. And I think the maximum harassment a website can do, is deactivating its users without notice or any comment. But I am sure PPH board will never do this.
Let's get back to the topic. What should we do now? It is now 3 days that I didn't manage to send a single proposal for any job... I'm really frustrated and disappointed.
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This new system is absolutely useless! not only we cannot send proposals for jobs anymore but the so called "matched" jobs that we get thorugh emails (2 jobs every 2 days) are not really matched with my skills.... My skills are PHP, Wordpress, HTML, MYSQL etc and I get invitation for ASP.net or photoshop or all other unrelated skills. People per hour is going down hill so fast that when they hit the floor, there will be nothing left of them! I won't even wish them good luck as I can see what's comming for them in the future. I won't be working on peopleperhour anymore and I suggest all other "older" developers who have been loyal to peopleperhour to do the same. peopleperhour is not loyal to us, why do we have to be loyal to them?! all they care about is to get more sign ups but they don't know that by implementing such useless system, they are loosing 2 to 3 sellers for every single new seller that signs up.
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I take it all back, this is a great feature.
Here's why:
Being sent constant invites to send proposals for logo design jobs for £15(!), 12 page brochures for £50 (!!) or to make a handbag (?!!!) has severely reduced the perceived value of PPH and of the work available on it.
I know for a fact that there are Blue Chip companies posting jobs on here (or there used to be). There has always been the '$6 logo' types on PPH (buyers and sellers) but I now seem to be drowning in low value (or zero value) jobs/invites. I used to be able to browse new jobs without filtering by price and just ignore the ridiculous ones, no chance of that now, I'd be here all day just looking. I should point out also that I rarely used to browse jobs as I got enough work through hourlies to keep things ticking over, but I get next to no worthwhile enquiries now.
Now it's not entirely PPHs fault that some people want to sell themselves so cheap, and I realise that there are people on the site who are just doing it for 'pocket money' (when I started on here my rates were a lot cheaper because I had a full time job, but as soon I went full-time freelance my rates changed quite a bit, and as expected the number of jobs drastically decreased, but the value of the work I did get increased), but if you constantly send me emails suggesting that I bid on jobs that will take me days for pay that is less than my rate for 1 hour I have not alternative but to assume you are the Poundland of freelancing, and move on.
So, I thank you for introducing this feature and making me realise sooner than I might have, that I am wasting precious time on here, trolling through one 'joke-of-a-job" after another. And realise this PPH – things snowball – and as freelancers gradually drop out or move on, the big Blue Chips will come here looking for serious, talented designers (or whatever) and all they will be met with is "I can design your catalogue for a biscuit" and they too will move on. Game over.
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Aha, Paul, I get to disagree with you for a change :-)
As the majority of people are often apathetic, a vociferous response, even from a small minority is indicative of a much larger group of disattisfied who will not complain but vote with their feet, and take their business elsewhere. The strength and number of complaints in this thread and the others about this subject should be a great big red flag to any service business.
Furthermore, the group who have posted here are, I would expect, high earners/high cert/experienced freelancers who a sensible management (!) would want to retain. I do not believe that if PPH is trying to exist on large numbers of six quid jobs it will succeed as the fixed costs must eat up all the profits. This strategy didn't work well in the photolibrary world and it won't work well here.
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I hate this new system also, it seems I get priority bidding for jobs I don't want and unable to bid on the ones I do want. It has nothing to do with a skill match, it all comes down to what the buyer selects as the categories... doesn't matter if it fits or not.
I have been using PPH as a large portion of my work and now I can bid on the jobs I want and need. It seems I may have to look elsewhere as earning an income on this site is stupidly hard and more complicated than it needs to be.
I hope PPH realises this new approach is stupid and they are going to loose alot of freelancers from it!!!!
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So the restriction appears to have been lifted for however long - is it my imagination or does there seem to a glut of jobs coming through as if they've been withheld? They just seem to be coming in faster than they have all day. I don't appear to genuinely have the right skill set for these now - typical ! !
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23:31 GMT
restrictions still lifted _
call me slow but i just noticed for the first time that design of the pph interface is about to get a major overhaul
i wonder if the restrictions are connected to this in any way and/or whether they will be implemented full-time with the facelift : \ -
I wouldn't get too excited about the restrictions having been lifted permanently. I noticed the same thing last night. About 11pm nothing seemed to have restrictions on it. Then by this morning the white boxes started to appear again. Why they are being lifted overnight (in the UK and Europe) I don't know. Surely if this is an automated matching system it would run 24/7 ... perhaps the matching is being done by people who have to get some sleep, or the automated system is depressed about the lack of appreciation we are all showing and is visiting its therapist overnight..
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Yep I noticed that too last night. We're trying to put a timescale on the limits. What is the earliest it is lifted and the latest it is imposed.
I stand by my theory that it coincides with the introduction of skrill which is a more popular payment system in Asia. It would coincide nicely with time differences. For example in Japan it is currently 9.36 local time. I think PPH is making a move to break the market over there.
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This new system is unfair to both the buyers and sellers. I have worked tremendously hard to reach level 5 on PPH and this madness cannot begin now.
Take the following example.
1.(Negative effect on the buyer) I got invited to do a job in Mandarin, a language of which I do not speak. So if the seller who actually has expertise in this area was not invited, and the client needed the job done an hour after posting it...better yet, the job might move into the 2nd or 3rd page and sellers with expertise fail to see it completely. So how will the client get what he/she wants in time or ever for that matter? Total rubbish.
- I sent proposals for jobs once the 2 hour window is done and the buyer still awards the job to me (this however has happened very few times). So PPH kindly explain to me the logic in inviting sellers to a job yet the client will end up selecting another seller once the 2 hour window is up? Clearly you have just wasted 2 hours of the clients time, time in which the job would have been started and a significant amount of progress would have been made.
Don't get me wrong, I love PPH but I think you need to do further research before implementing some of these new systems.
James.
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funny, I've posted two comments and none was published. my comments were as clean as a white sheet so there was no reason behind not publishing them!! I'd say it again and lets hope you publish it this time, I am one of the PPH users that disagrees with this new system that you have in place.
Any company in a right mind, would sit down and think twice about implementing a new idea and will do some brain storming between themsleves about any new idea but PPH staff go to bed and wake with an idea (no matter how pointless the idea is) and then they will implement their thoughts/dreams into the site the following day without thinking about the outcome of that new thing!!
This new system hasn't even been tested and fine tuned before you implemented it and that's why people including myself are getting invitation for the jobs that are not related to their skills.
as a developer, I can assure you that even small businesses have a testing server which would allow them to run tests on new stuff for their sites before they start using them on their live servers! but this clearly is not the case for PPH which is very strange given the amount of fee's PPH charges!
This is not only a bad system for PPH users (buyers and sellers) but it's also a bad idea for PPH itself as a company in terms of generating revenue! I mean these things must have gone through at least 1, Yes, at least ONE of the PPH that works in PPH! and if so then I am amazed why they haven't mentioned it!
1- according to PPH, this system was "designed" to give more chance to the developers who can't get jobs due to lack of rating etc..
My Answer: First of all, we (developers with rating) also started from there. we didn't have any ratings. did we? But we built our rating up by providing a good service and having enough skills to build our rating.
So if you really care so much about your "new" developers then you can teach them how to send proposals or how to create a Portfolio or how to speak /write English properly or how to provide a top noch service like we do instead of implementing a system that does nothing but alienating your older and more skilled developers!
2- By implementing this system, you are not allowing your buyers to receive quality proposals and you are bringing down the standards of PPH developers.
3- This useless system will have a direct impact on PPH revenue! why?!
My Answer: becuase as you can clearly see, people are not happy with this system and they have clearly stated that they will move on and will not work on PPH anymore due to the fact that this new system stops them from creating an income. so many developers, like myself (especially the ones with good rating) rely on working on PPH to generate an income on a monthly basis and this new system which I have never seen anywhere else have affected them/us. and I can assure you that people do not have the spare time that you are hopping for to wait around for two hours to be able to send a proposal for a project and that's only if the project still exists!and then this will trun into a vicious cycle as you will always lose your older developers and the new ones will join in to replace the old ones that have already left only to find out that this system is not suitable for a "Market Place"....
believe me, this is how employment agencies work and if I wanted to work for an employment agency or through an employment agency then I wouldn't have become a freelancer 9 years ago!
PS. PPH is not registered as an employment agency to act like one!
finally, once your buyers see only a handfull of proposals from new sellers with no rating, they will leave too and once again, I can assure you, there are countless Marketing Places on internet that your buyers could go to.
Some genuine questions from PPH:
It is absolutely beyond me that PPH never thought this through before going ahead with it.
Is this a greed on your (PPH) part to get more people to sign up? Because if it is then it is not working.
is this just a test and will be removed soon? if so, then your test failed so remove the system so we all can get back to normal.
is this a mistake that you got stuck with (coding wise)? if so, we can help. I personally would help you just to sort this mess out.
I hope this post gets published.
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I was lucky enough yesterday to be invited to, by the seller, and then won a job creating a business profile for an architectural and design firm. I now eagerly await the influx of emails telling my I am the perfect candidate for 'tensile fabric structure designs' and 'to create architectural drawings to meet building regulations' and giving me a 2 hour window to get my bids in first, whoop!
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