@leahzero
“- Contest holders who declare that none of the 300+ submissions to their $100 (minimum prize) logo contest are good enough. (LOL.)”

and…

“Even the upfront fee the site charges to run a contest doesn’t seem to deter them anymore–it’s still cheaper than paying out the promised minimum prize. Forcing the contest holders to put the prize into escrow and finding some fair way to award it should the CH abandon the contest would remove a huge proportion of the fraud taking place there now–removing the contest abandonment and underbidding issues in one fell swoop.”

***Before I continue, I must say I agree with you completely leahzero, wonderful post.***

And for my comment on what I copied from leahzero’s post:

I also think it is ridiculous that out of hundreds of designs, you could not like one of them enough to pay $100. The contest holder is saying that $100 was not worth how many hours of work? ***So why should they not be forced to place the $100 on hold with sitepoint/99designs.*** The contest holder knows they will be presented with hundreds of designs, and will pay the $100 eventually (or after 7 days max?) Do they really think they will get ripped off? There are hundreds (thousands?) of projects that made clients happy. They only charge $39, or less for other sites, because charging the full project price up front would scare future contest holders away, which is nonsense since spec works sites just about guarantee you will find a design you like, so why wait 7 days to pay for it?

I don’t want to stray anymore on to the topic of how a spec work site should be ran as I do not support them after my bit of experience with them, just felt like sharing my frustration with sites like sitepoint/99designs as I was in a similar position as leahzero.

With spec work there is no such commitment.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with Sitepoint. It’d make a great blog post you know …

Got tired of dealing with:

- Contest holders who abandon their contest, never declaring a winner or awarding a prize.

- Contest holders who declare that none of the 300+ submissions to their $100 (minimum prize) logo contest are good enough. (LOL.)

- Contest holders who don’t provide feedback, provide misleading feedback, or are otherwise inept communicators.

- Contest holders who accept lower bids under the table from designers who are trying to avoid working on spec by underbidding.

- Contest holders who display abysmal taste and choose terrible designs by unskilled hobbyists.

- Contest holders who have no idea what they want and mislead entrants into refining a design that they don’t really like.

- “Designers” who brazenly plagiarize copyrighted works, illustrations, templates, and other entrants’ submissions.

- “Designers” who trash talk others when said plagiarism is exposed and cast a bad light on those with integrity and the courage to speak up.

- “Designers” who are willing to underbid everyone, to the point of marginal pay, simply to “win” a contract–who have no concept of the value of the work but treat the process as some kind of game.

- “Designers” who devalue the work of others by not respecting their own worth and demanding adequate pay for good work.

- Overall atmosphere of cut-rate amateurism, hostility, philistinism, theft, etc.

Two months of it is plenty for me. I’m done. I would rather temp-to-perm and be treated with the modicum of respect that comes along with working in the 9 to 5 world than waste any further time with that scum.

Sitepoint could go a long way towards flushing out the corruption by simply implementing a mandatory escrow service. The most serious issue for me was deadbeat contest holders. Even the upfront fee the site charges to run a contest doesn’t seem to deter them anymore–it’s still cheaper than paying out the promised minimum prize. Forcing the contest holders to put the prize into escrow and finding some fair way to award it should the CH abandon the contest would remove a huge proportion of the fraud taking place there now–removing the contest abandonment and underbidding issues in one fell swoop.

It still wouldn’t convince me to waste a minute more of my time at Sitepoint, though. I see a trend of good designers leaving that site as they realize it’s not worth their time. Maybe in the past, before the contests were so popular, it was a reasonable risk to compete against other talented designers and win a bit of extra cash now and then, but the good days (if there ever were any) are long gone.

It makes me depressed about the future of design work in general.

Disagreements are encouraged. Incorrect English is fine.

But profanity will be deleted.

Still not inclined to believe you. Having studied several non-English languages your grammatical structure and other linguistic errors are in line with the errors that trolls make when working to incite anger and have no matching with a foreigner having trouble speaking English. I’ve spent a fair bit of time working internationally and can speak several non-English languages well enough to survive in a foreign city for a week without using any English.

Once again you show no knowledge of design, as all but 2 of the designs I’d rate as my top ten favorite were only positioned text and maybe an image of a person. Carefully chosen words positioned in a thoughtful manner on a page can be a much more powerful design than some image of someone you don’t relate to.

You can also note that I didn’t say English is a requirement for good design, I said proper use of language, so if I were to believe that you really aren’t a native English speaker the dismissal of using language in design is still a sign that you don’t know much yet.

English comes in since this is an English speaking group and if you want to make a point you’re going to have to use enough English that a native speaker can understand you. While your last post is understandable English, it does nothing to make a point or contribute to the discussion at hand, and does nothing to change the appearance of you being nothing more than a troll. Initiating personal attacks on people you have never met, calling them “kids” or “whiners” that you have met thousands of, and the general showing of a lack of maturity and knowledge with your posts makes it appear like you are the young one who has now bit off more than he can chew.

You have failed to convince me of anything, and since proper use of a language can often be an important part of a logo design I have no reason to believe you know anything about design. While not an admin or anyone important on this site, I am fairly sure that trolls (especially ones that demonstrate they know nothing about design) are not welcome here, so I advise you to get out and never return.

Anyone can claim anything, but hiding behind an offensive name and posting inane crap while not responding to requests for real contribution to the discussion gives everyone reason to not believe a word you say. I for one, based on your posts, am of the opinion that you wouldn’t even know a tablet if one were to leap up on its own and pummel your face repeatedly, and the same goes for design.