I’d e-mailed one of the staff e-mails from a previous ticket.

Overall, I find your site great for design projects, but with the limitations that you’re describing, I don’t see any of the creative growth benefits of the way your system for design works. The only benefit is cash, and that’s… boring.

Seeing how others tackle problems is a big part of what makes the design projects a growth opportunity for competing designs, for instance, and seeing the winner is instructive too in terms of seeing the connection between what a client says their looking for, the feedback they leave, and the work they ultimately choose.

Trust me — I understand why you’re doing the writing projects the way you’re doing. But I’m sharing my viewpoint, as a creative, that I don’t find it satisfying.

With your decisions, the only incentive for writers to compete is $$$.

All the other benefits of the design process — gone.

Just one person’s viewpoint.

I love your site for design projects, and you guys do a great job overall. I’ve recommended your design process literally dozens of times in the past few months. I can’t do the same for the writing side — yet.

Matthew

I’d e-mailed one of the staff e-mails from a previous ticket.

Overall, I find your site great for design projects, but with the limitations that you’re describing, I don’t see any of the creative growth benefits of the way your system for design works. The only benefit is cash, and that’s… boring.

Seeing how others tackle problems is a big part of what makes the design projects a growth opportunity for competing designs, for instance, and seeing the winner is instructive too in terms of seeing the connection between what a client says their looking for, the feedback they leave, and the work they ultimately choose.

Trust me — I understand why you’re doing the writing projects the way you’re doing. But I’m sharing my viewpoint, as a creative, that I don’t find it satisfying.

With your decisions, the only incentive for writers to compete is $$$.

All the other benefits of the design process — gone.

Just one person’s viewpoint.

I love your site for design projects, and you guys do a great job overall. I’ve recommended your design process literally dozens of times in the past few months. I can’t do the same for the writing side — yet.

Matthew

I’m surprised you didn’t hear back from us. When you click the “contact-us” link on the site, you’ll get an email in response with a ticket number. That tells you that we’ve received your note (if you didn’t get a response email, it’s possible that we didn’t receive your note).

As for evolution – we have lots of work ahead of us. We already have numerous changes planned for writing projects and will work tirelessly to continue to improve how they work – for both creatives and buyers.

Thanks for your feedback!

I’m surprised you didn’t hear back from us. When you click the “contact-us” link on the site, you’ll get an email in response with a ticket number. That tells you that we’ve received your note (if you didn’t get a response email, it’s possible that we didn’t receive your note).

As for evolution – we have lots of work ahead of us. We already have numerous changes planned for writing projects and will work tirelessly to continue to improve how they work – for both creatives and buyers.

Thanks for your feedback!

We have no way of knowing if the winner is similar to ours. Further, it’s just plain unsatisfying. We’ll literally never know what the buyer was looking for, and this stunts our growth as creatives. All we get is a “unfortunately, you lost” e-mail.

Further, most buyers are choosing to stay anonymous, so we can’t even check up on them and see if they’re using any of our ideas down the road.

I e-mailed the site and didn’t hear back from you guys about these and other concerns, and now I’m seeing only 4 or so projects to browse from in total.

I wonder if other writers are also hoping to see the service evolve better soon. The concept is great, but at this point, I’ve been a little disappointed.

Matthew

We have no way of knowing if the winner is similar to ours. Further, it’s just plain unsatisfying. We’ll literally never know what the buyer was looking for, and this stunts our growth as creatives. All we get is a “unfortunately, you lost” e-mail.

Further, most buyers are choosing to stay anonymous, so we can’t even check up on them and see if they’re using any of our ideas down the road.

I e-mailed the site and didn’t hear back from you guys about these and other concerns, and now I’m seeing only 4 or so projects to browse from in total.

I wonder if other writers are also hoping to see the service evolve better soon. The concept is great, but at this point, I’ve been a little disappointed.

Matthew

@Melissa – thanks so much for those kind words; we’re looking forward to seeing your projects!

@Jesse – if you haven’t already done so, be sure to hop in and participate on the current batch of Writing projects! http://www.crowdspring.com/browse/writing/

@Melissa – thanks so much for those kind words; we’re looking forward to seeing your projects!

@Jesse – if you haven’t already done so, be sure to hop in and participate on the current batch of Writing projects! http://www.crowdspring.com/browse/writing/

Now 15 years later you have created a tool that I can recommend to all the authors we work with and I will now use for my 12th book I am working on as we speak.

Best,

Melissa Giovagnoli
http://www.networlding.com

Now 15 years later you have created a tool that I can recommend to all the authors we work with and I will now use for my 12th book I am working on as we speak.

Best,

Melissa Giovagnoli
http://www.networlding.com

For instance, if a contest is to come up with marketing content for the home page of their site, perhaps what they are looking for is a list of bullet points with a short paragraph for each. What’s to keep the contest holder from awarding one writer the prize, but still “borrowing” ideas and bullet points from many other writers?

As a writer, is there any way that we can know where this content will get used, so later on we can go and see what they decided upon? I’m guessing that isn’t really possible.

Lastly, if the contest holder is looking for a domain name idea, and someone owns one that they think would be perfect for the contest, is it acceptable to offer to sell it to them? Will these kinds of contests become full of “spam” entries with domaineers marketing their domains?

I’m not trying to rant, I love the idea of writing contests. But the faq didn’t really go into much from the writer’s perspective, and I think us writers might have a lot of questions like these.

For instance, if a contest is to come up with marketing content for the home page of their site, perhaps what they are looking for is a list of bullet points with a short paragraph for each. What’s to keep the contest holder from awarding one writer the prize, but still “borrowing” ideas and bullet points from many other writers?

As a writer, is there any way that we can know where this content will get used, so later on we can go and see what they decided upon? I’m guessing that isn’t really possible.

Lastly, if the contest holder is looking for a domain name idea, and someone owns one that they think would be perfect for the contest, is it acceptable to offer to sell it to them? Will these kinds of contests become full of “spam” entries with domaineers marketing their domains?

I’m not trying to rant, I love the idea of writing contests. But the faq didn’t really go into much from the writer’s perspective, and I think us writers might have a lot of questions like these.

Though question, I know .

For design projects I don’t see this happening, but for short texts it’s easy to claim you already thought of a name before.

The only solution I can come up with is stating the ’25 entries minimum’-rule doesn’t hold up when a company uses a name that has been suggested by a user. Even when the company supposedly already came up with it before the contest. (unless, of course, they announce their own ideas up front)

Though question, I know .

For design projects I don’t see this happening, but for short texts it’s easy to claim you already thought of a name before.

The only solution I can come up with is stating the ’25 entries minimum’-rule doesn’t hold up when a company uses a name that has been suggested by a user. Even when the company supposedly already came up with it before the contest. (unless, of course, they announce their own ideas up front)

davebowman – thanks! We spent a great deal of time debating/discussing/testing galleries and how things will work. As you know – we always invite feedback and never hesitate to evolve. Glade to hear we started in a good place.

If two creatives enter the exact same name, we’d ask the buyer to split the award (since writing projects are private, creatives would not be able to see each others’ entries and we’d want to do what’s equitable). Curious if you think that’s a reasonable approach and if not – what you would do.

davebowman – thanks! We spent a great deal of time debating/discussing/testing galleries and how things will work. As you know – we always invite feedback and never hesitate to evolve. Glade to hear we started in a good place.

If two creatives enter the exact same name, we’d ask the buyer to split the award (since writing projects are private, creatives would not be able to see each others’ entries and we’d want to do what’s equitable). Curious if you think that’s a reasonable approach and if not – what you would do.