What additonal forums would you like to have in oDesk Community?

First of all, I'd like you to know I've commented on this topic before...

I support your worthy ideals of creating a marketplace for certified professionals.  I have to wonder though, why you put the brakes on creating more certified professionals.  You could easily encourage more growth by making a few, simple changes:

1. Establish tutorials that mirror the organization of your tests.  No one likes to get questions wrong in the "advanced" section of a test because they have no clue where to go to find information they need to do better next time....
2. Eliminate obscure section titles for different parts of the tests.  For instance, instead of "advanced" section on PHP test, how about sections called "DOM Navigation", or "using JSON in php".  Using my suggested titles offers would be developers the chance to target searches to find the information they need. Try doing a search of "advanced php" vs "JSoN in PHP" and you'll see what I mean.
3. Create "smart" learning paths that prey upon developer's weaknesses.  If a PERL developer has an obvious deficiency in working with hashes(which your online tests would reveal), point  that developer to an online source of information.

In short, your online tests should be a tool that:  Speaks clearly about what is being tested, reveals weaknesses and provides direction (links to relevant, accurate information) so that the developer may overcome those weaknesses.

Do those things and will grow faster.  Don't do those things and your competition will!  Remember, everyone naturally wants to succeed.  Help your developers grow and they will help your marketplace grow.

Now that I think about all these things, if you would like to provide me some sort of admin access to your test database (or a development environment with database access) I would be happy to help develop such a system.  This would be a great item to put on my resume!

I find the software difficult to work with - for me, not intuitive at all. I just want to hire a person - yet it can take me a great amount of frustration to set that up - I have used odesk 5 times before is still time consuming & aggravating - I already know the p[rovider, amount of pay, etc. but have a tough time making it happen !

Donnnnr

Sound has been a great factor in multimedia. I recommend that Odesk need to have a test or certification on this field if there is none yet. Try out Degidesign products - http://www.digidesign.com/

The user interface for managing my team is incredibly slow... we're talking 10-15 second page loads on a fast connection. You have a wonderful service here, but the slow interface makes it a chore to use, and as a result I don't use it as much as I would like to. 

Not sure if this covered in any forum, but I would like the ability to ask questions to make sure that I am writing up my jobs correctly and searching in the correct areas for the right providers. I am a newbie in trying to get websites developed for personal businesses so I need somewhere to ask questions before I write up my final detailed design document.

Thank you.

iam happey