[legionofangels]

Originally Posted by Danny.VBT

We can talk economics and service charges till the cows come home, but it's not going to change anything.

Do you think anything can be done with our service request forum to make it easier for both clients to make their requests as detailed as possible and for coders to easily search constraints for requests to pull up services that they would be interested in....these constraints could be:

Skills required, Deadline, Budget, etc...etc....?

I am just throwing out ideas.

If you want my honest opinion I'm truly shocked as to how highly developed this communities Modifications section is, with custom profile fields for every possible variable in dealing with a new mod or template add on etc. That on the flip side your Request for Paid Services section is the complete opposite, and practically underdeveloped.

Like I said in another thread, look at how the pro systems work, guru, rent a coder, etc. Probably even look at things like Amazon, Ebay. Massive sites that do great work for both clients and "coders" in the case of the former.

The problem overall we may have here is that this is a forum and "how do we get this to work on a forum format".

If we don't make a custom section perhaps even external of the forum but on this site, to have full display/don't display options of hiding information from coders, and comments done. Then we really need to allow for posting in the Paid Requests Section. I mean, allow coders to ask questions on specifications of the job, allow for customization so that when someone does a template/format request:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=177574

Like mine, formatted. But instead all you'd have to do is alter your mods you've done for Mods/Styles releases, to allow for people to enter in specific information.

Name of Project

Checkbox List showing all types of coding/platforms required, hit all that apply

When Would You Like To Complete Project: Have ranges of time dropdown menu or check box list

Range you'd like to spend: again, range of expenses

ETC.

As said in another thread, I'm a Sales Exec. so when I get leads from an automated system they look like this, which is the format I thought about, but didn't copy exactly when making my post:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...6/requesto.jpg

Don't worry, no sensitive information there, except you people now know I live in Colorado obviously.

Make a New Button related to that forum, stating Respond To Job Offer, sending a direct pm to the poster.

The key thing we don't want is coders seeing each others bids. OR, maybe we do, where coders can just respond in the threads and continue to bid like an auction if someone REALLY wants the job. Most coders on guru gave a fair price, and I'm not sure whether they could see other responses or not, but the one's we dealt with did NOT alter there costs if they could see the others. The last bid we got was the highest of them all and we were like...hmm...maybe they can't see the other bids. BUT maybe they could and they stand by there price whether high, low, or inbetween somewhere, as we got 4 estimates on a job at guru. Which if they stand by there price, I honestly respect that more as a patron.

Key thing is Danny, if you make your system more user friendly for both Coders and Users, you're going to have more happy VB Users and Coders getting more jobs and perhaps more interest at using the system. Which in turn is positive for all of us.

The feedback system for Coders should work like an additional REP system. Where all those who have the usergroup of Designer, Coder, or Coder/Designer have a rating in there profile or post bit showing what ratings customers have given them. < Don't know how to implement but entirely necessary for Coders and Designers alike getting the rep they deserve whether good or bad for there work.

I mean, 10 Star Rating System or something, put it on there User Profile Pages, I don't know. http://www.masugadesign.com/the-lab/...ar-rating-bar/

You probably don't need that and have access to vb's rating system, but still we used that for our site.

Whether any of this is used or not, thanks for reading, and SOMETHING has to be done IMO.

PS. Should work just like a poll, a request for service is up for X amount of days allowed to be bid on, then the thread is closed or job closed.

PS. 2 > The Profile Rating System with it's own set of comments like User Notes, or the 3.7 comment system for vbulletin would work really well for this if the comments could be split in either General, or Rating/Customer Comments.