limiting free bids for first proposal

Hi,

There is a nice feature about proposal system. First proposal of any project is free, which is nice. But I have just noticed that some group of people always spoiling that feature. If you check the the bidders of any job projects posted very recent, there is a some certain group of freelancers, they always got the first bid. Probably they are sitting online and refreshing the projects list continuously and whenever a new project posted, they send the first (free) proposal (or some of them may have a query script running background, automatically sending the proposal with a standard text whenever it catches a newly posted project, I hope they do not). I am sure they do not read the detail of the project, I also think that they even do not read the title, because I have seen some projects, for example, saying "female native English voiceover artist", the first bidder freelancer is obviously not native English speaker, and you guessed right, obviously non-female. You can find lots of similar examples.

I see, it is a totally legal action for now. If the first bid is free, the fastest freelancer can send a thousand of free proposals without violating current pph rules. But I think it should be changed and there should be an upper limit of how many free first bids any freelancer could use. I mean, what is the point of paying for extra bidding credit for me, if some people could always have much more proposal credit then me, without paying anything? So if there is also monthly limit for free first proposal credits, I think it will be more fair and competitive. It is also better for buyers, because probably they are just seeing lots of irrelevant proposals.

Regards,

Abdullah

Official comment

Haris

July 02, 2020 14:02

Hi Abdullah,

thanks for taking the time for such a detailed feedback.

It goes without saying that freelancers that "game" the system in such a way are not actually gaining anything (since almost always their proposals are crappy). You will be also glad to hear that we are working on an improved scoring system for freelancers that takes into account the number of proposals that a freelancers sends, therefore spamming will definitely be penalized.

In any case you are right, we could enhance the element of fairness by setting a cap on the free proposals that a freelancer may send and this is something that we will definitely need to consider. This will also help reducing the "noise" for buyers.

Keep the feedback coming!

Product Manager @ PeoplePerHour

July 02, 2020 14:47

Hi Haris,

Thank you for your very explaining message. I am really glad to hear about improvements you are working on.

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limiting free bids for first proposal

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