Showing earnings on the provider profile -- what do you think?

It certainly sounds encouraging, as a newbie, to feature on recency basis as well.
It is a shame to be lost in the search result when you have no stars (feedback score) or hours to show off as a starter.
Often buyers send off invites to providers who dont even patronize oDesk anymore.

This would certainly be encouraging for a newbie who is starting out & his continued return even merely for job searching would keep his profile in the top search results. Thats more chance of being noticed & of being hired.

1. Though I do believe the search criterion too will influence the hiring/find/search results not just the relevancy algorithm. So if we encourage providers to search based on feedback scores (the default search results!) or based on hours, rather than a skill or recency: it just wont let this possibility develop. Maybe if we make the active for last 15 days/1 week a default for the searches conducted: that would help your cause!

2. Whatever happened to AVAILABILITY - does the oDesk provider have as many hours to take on yet another assignment? If there is an application limit, is there one for the number of jobs? So for the buyer though the provider is always recent, he just has too many jobs & will be inundated with more: and the unsuspecting buyer may completely miss this in the "recency" drive.

3. Will certainly have more oDeskers go active & visit the site frequently. I dont know how lop-sided that would make the results.

And now for the "earned" -Im glad the provider has the choise to show this on his profile or not.
How is the earning information supposed to influence the buyers decision?
We anyway celebrate the high earners here on oDesk; hopefully this will be a shot in the arm for the oConomy, with the $1-$2 being discouraged...I dunno Im just wondering aloud.
BTW I love the figures you have shown in this example - I would be one happy woman to have those numbers showing hopefully in a year of joining!

I am just wondering are we looking for recency or are we looking for active providers? If the buyer finds either type of provider, is the provider available or are these providers just gonna hoard on the jobs merely based on their daily attendance to the site & underquoting assignments to keep in circulation?

I think its a great attempt to keep the buyers from making relevant choices & rather encouraging to see the newbies make it on the search results.

Some examples of search results would hep us all understand how this actually benefits both Buyer & Provider. For eg you could show how on application of this algorithm the search result of a particular profile is impacted.

Thanks for your patient listening/reading.

Sincerely,
Chloe
sheetal36@odesk.com

I could already see the pace at which you guys are considering our feedback.
I notice the "hours worked" across hourly projects
and the "--" across the fixed price assignemnts

Deepa

I think that would be a very relevant information...

And with the ability to control whether they want to show it or not. It would be a great way to market yourself to prospective buyers or they can elect to hide it .

Regards

Advice: don't do it. Not, at least, unless it's off my default and voluntary.

I posted more on this in the other thread.

Any such mandatory-on feature would represent an artificial control on the Odesk economy. One of the basic lessons of the past 76 years of economics is that if you're going to control an economy, you'd better control it dollars to donuts (and historically, every large scale attempt has been a disaster) - you never implement controls piecemeal, or you end up making people suffer and destroying the capitalistic potential of the economy. We live in a wash of post-Soviet economies, and post-New-Deal economics that represent the inevitable need (now underway) to reverse such bureacratic tinkering.

I'm telling you, either leave it an uncontrolled economy, in the spirit of the internet. In the attitude of things like google, youtube, craig's list, and everything that online empowerment has represented for bringing disconnected people together, permitting unimpeded trade, and empowering people formerly trapped in a "3rd world", or you control it dollars to donuts - you take an AOL approach - and own what you've done every step of the way. Don't tinker.

Don't ever tinker. If the question is ever,  "should we implement some action that will touch dollars and cents and no one has a choice about it", revisit the above considerations. I'm telling you, this is a bad, bad idea. Go with it, if you want - but these things tend to be cumulative: effects are created that invite or require further controls and, before long, your community doesn't look anything like its founders' best intentions.

Take a lesson from the restaurant industry. Most new, innovative restaurants have a 2-3 year shelf life, if they manage to have a decent business model. They start out strong, but pretty soon they start thinking about how to cut costs. They buy slightly older lettuce, tomatoes from a less expensive source, they go with bread baked that week instead of that day, and they hire $5/hr cashiers instead of the owner personally greeting customers. Any one of these things, isn't enough to ruin it. But combined, by little threads, the place makes a just ordinary sandwich after a year or two. Combined with inevitable 25% client turnover, and the loss of marketshare earned by mere "newness", they're on the way to oblivion. Jersey Mikes here is like that. No one bothers anymore. In another year, they'll be gone completely.

Economic controls are similar. Who wants to build a business in a controlled economy? We can handle one or two controls here or there. But over time, as they start to accumulate, you look for a different place to drill oil. Moldavia just doesn't make sense anymore. And this suggestion, imo, is a 'tax' on your provider base. You may not see it as such, and I'm sorry to preach, but I think it's that. It makes me shake my head.

Provider earnings should be a private matter. If this were a brick and mortar employer, earnings would remain private between the provider/employee and the buyer/employer. If a provider feels compelled to display earnings to the public, then that should be his/her decision. I, for one, do not feel this is something I want publicized. Additionally, I feel, I should be given the ultimate decision-making power when it comes to what information search engines display about me to the global public.

I think there should only be one item - earnings - and not hours worked.

My reasoning is this.  The rate you charge and pay is based on a combination of how fast/good you can do the job.  

For example: Mr. A can design a website in 25 hours and charges $20/hr for a total of $500.  Mr. B is less experienced and takes longer but does it to the same quality.  To make up for his lack of experience, he charges $10/hr but it takes him 50 hours.  So in either case, the buyer pays $500.

Therefore, outside people should only know that this task was performed for $500 - this is the value of the task.  It doesn't matter what the hourly rate was or how long it took.  The buyer was willing to pay this amount and the provider could do the work for this amount.  The value of this work is the only important information that should be shared with outsiders.

Then, in your search, buyers could have the opportunity to search based on amount earned - not hours worked. Someone who has worked 500 hours at $20/hr and has earned $10000 has provided a lot more value than someone working the same amount of hours at $2/hr.  This should be reflected in the search rankings.

Showing only the earnings, would also help consolidate the differences between fixed rate jobs and hourly rate jobs - there shouldn't be any reporting differences on the profiles.

In summary, there should not be any hourly information about how long it took you - just how much was earned/paid.

I am against it.

At least I need an option to not show it.

Thank you.