Difficulties hiring a vb coder...

[MagnetiCat]

Originally Posted by Jase2

Anyway, I'm joining the Royal Marines in a few months (September) - at least that is a lot more rewarding. Money isn't everything you know?

Let me say that working in community based websites is sometimes also a very rewarding experience. Much more than working on business websites.

The reason is simple - you get to know people that are incredibly dedicated to a subject, and you get to know about things, sometimes about whole worlds you would have never imagined existed. One of our best long time clients is a huge vB community about sports cards. It was a world I completely ignored, but there you see a gigantic team of moderators and administrator handling thousands of posts per day, moderating trades between users, and thousands of users discussing about things you are forced to know a bit more in order to do a good work. And the same happened with Gt40 cars, forex cards, and occasionally even in "realms" one should not mention in websites accessed by young ones. Yeah, there is something to learn also in those places.

Sometimes being hired by a guy really dedicated to his community is like entering a new world. And trust me, MySpace is popular, Facebook is popular, YouTube is popular, but if you put together all the communities created through vBulletin you have such an endless and REALLY diverse universe that none of the big networks can compare to.

[steven s]

Interesting thread.
I needed a mod done and it took a couple attempts to line up someone.

The first attempt I was not clear enough on the specs I think.
I was more thorough the second time around.

Someone from vB.org contacted me. We discussed what the mod needed to do.
I agreed to his flat price of I think $300US.
It took a few go arounds to fix some minor things.
End result, the mod has been working since 3.5 and I am very happy with it.

There is no way I could have accepted an hourly offer from someone.
If I budgeted $500 and it still isn't done in say 10 hours ($50/hr), what do I do?

So. . . .
I think to get someone to look at a project, you need to spec it out as carefully as possible.
Have you notifications of PMs ON and accept emails.
If you have a budget, state it.

I think we are getting wee bit off topic - eh?

[Jase2]

Yes, I think were are Danny hehe. Maybe split the last few posts into a new thread?

[Shelby]

Here's the reality of the current forums.

For myself, a person who is a pure community user. A guy who sets up Vbulletin sites to build communities. I do not code. I am not a graphic designer. I know only basic HTML. I come to these forums to find Vbulletin professionals. So far what I've noticed is a few things.

There needs to be some basic lithnis tests. Some sort of rating system, for people who actually have had work done by coders.

I've noticed that many coders are too booked up with jobs to do your work, heck in several cases, I've posted something with fairly clear instructions and recieved zero responses.

Personally I think the paid work section needs some serious paid work in order for it to really be a resource for community individuals like myself.

Regarding pricing, honestly, I've never found the pricing to be an issue except for once.

[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.

[iogames]

Why?
If I got Zoints, ibProArcade, Casino, Radio & TV, GoldBrick, vBClubs, ShoutBox, etc for FREE?

[Gio~Logist]

Originally Posted by nexialys

... i require minimum 50$/h of charges... are you able to handle this on a job that can take 10 to 50 hours of work ?!... this is the reason why all the excellent coders are not available... "good money" or "cheap budgets" are avoided...

That's a very good point. The main reason for this is because there is a big gap between programmers and the average webmaster. Throughout that gap lay the difficulty and complexity of programing and code that the average webmaster may be ignorant towards. Things such as "i want every corner of my forum rounded and faded" may sound simple to the average webmaster. However, they have no idea the amount of code it takes to format and program a proper div or table to do so.

[Brueskie]

I often get contacted via my website (the one in my signature) by folks looking to hire me to design a theme for them. Many seem appalled that I won't create a custom theme similar to the one at my site for less than, say, $100. I had one guy who thought anything more than $20 was a complete ripoff. I could easily make more money mowing lawns in my spare time than what some of these people expect me to work for.

Some folks are simply looking to fleece the designer/coder. Others are genuinely ignorant of the amount of work involved. Still others seem to believe that highly customized one-off skin should cost the same as an off the shelf premade skin.

I also realize that the opposite happens all too often as well: coders who are looking to fleece unknowledgeable clients by exaggerating the difficulty of the job, or who simply take the money and run without doing anything.

Ah...for that Utopian world where everyone was honest and trustworthy.

[Boofo]

And then there are those coders that agree to a price and a job, but never deliver anything but promises. Although no money gets exchanged, it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth.