A funny thing happened on the Internet today. In a follow-up story to Rent A Coder Going Downhill Fast and the comments related to it, I decided to dig into this a little more since there is a debate going.
The Comments [Note: All comments are intact, complete with spelling and grammar mistakes.]
4 responses to “Rent A Coder Going Downhill Fast
The People
The “people” behind this cloak and dagger pissing contest are Kamen123 and TakeReal, both are current or past RAC users. From my own logs, both of these individuals are located in different parts of Bulgaria. Oddly, the debate on RAC between Kamen123 and TakeReal has happened on other sites including Google Groups, DIGG and few other websites. [Note: each one of those words is an article with Kamen123 posting and half have TakeReal on them as well.] This flowing Internet pissing contest is a little interesting to watch and I think its funny that it spilled over on my website. (All puns intended.)
Digging Into The Comments
So, lets dig into this debate/pissing contest. One statement being thrown out is that Rentacoder is a patch system and should be called rentapatcher.
- Patch: A patch is a small piece of software designed to update or fix problems with a computer program. This includes fixing bugs, replacing graphics and improving the usability or performance.
I understand that most of the projects on RAC are very small. The only project I’ve personally bid on was a simplistic form that would have taken me less than 5 minutes to code. While I don’t like this type of project, I was merely bidding to see how the system worked.
In my browsing over at RAC, which I do every few months, I see requests for new works all the time. Granted, some are requests for a new form to be made on a current website (I guess you could call this a patch), but the requests for mirror websites and such are not patches. There are also several forms of projects including small applications, homework assignments, etc. In a quick, unscientific, sampling of the newest open work (10 projects), 3 projects where the true definition – this translates into 30%.
To dig into the whole controversy of Kamen123 being removed from RAC, its true. Unfortunately, RAC states that he insulted people when he replied to the possibility of him being banned if he didn’t play nice.
What I don’t get is how TakeReal got involved in this argument or when. From my best guess, it stems from the Google Groups argument back in June 2006. Oddly, its intensified within the last month or so via DIGG and a few other sites.
In The End
Unfortunately, when looking over the full argument located on Google, a posting pattern appears. No matter what you write, Kamen123 will undoubtedly respond that you don’t understand him, that you support RAC and that RAC projects are mostly patches. Now, my ability to “understand simple English beyond a few sentences” allowed me to come to the conclusion that Kamen123 is pretty damn upset at RAC and that he’s attempting to take away money from them by trying to ruin their name. In the US, this is called Slander and you can be sued for such a thing.
Both of these guys have argued over pricing of the projects, from several hundred US Dollars to Several Thousands. I wanted to throw my opinion into the mixing bowl to get the creative juices flowing for people. The pricing structure on RAC has gone down due to several things. One major complaint among American coders, such as myself are that the projects are being bid on by people that drive down the pricing. I can’t justifiably spend 4 to 6 hours on a project and only make $75 from it. Doing this would just about kill me after taxes in the US. Now, in places that are not the US, the exchange rate helps these situations. $75US can turn into the American equivalent of $750 (in some nations, not all). If I can’t bid the true amount on these projects, the price just goes down.
If someone wanted a fully customized Content Management System (what I specialize in) and they specifically would not want something already designed, I would probably charge them close to $4,000 – depending on what they wanted. A project like this on RAC could go for as little as $500. There are even people in the US that will specifically say that they only want off-shore people to bid on the project to keep it low.
In the end, this pissing contest really doesn’t matter. Its a developer option to go to RAC or not. Sure, RAC has problems, as does any company. But, until the system RAC uses becomes almost unusable, it will continue to operate.
[Updated May 23 2007 - Comments closed. Tired of people reposting and reposting and reposting slander.]
30
10
2006
kamen123 (20:31:31) :
please note that bigger projects are far beyond mental abilities of RAC arbitrators
more details at
link
2
11
2006
TakeReal.com (02:10:38) :
Please, note:
Insulter “kamen123″ has ben banned from RentACoder.com.
“kamen123†spoil perfect site in revenge.
You can read more about “kamen123†here:
http://rentacoder.com/RentACoder/SoftwareBuyers/ShowBuyerInfo.asp?lngAuthorId=1606810
Quote: “(Arbitration/mediation result): RentACoder discovered evidence that suggested that Paris2 (the buyer)was not entirely truthful during the arbitration process. They were given an opportunity to disprove it, but instead refused to answer after being asked 3 times. Their account was closed for not following arbitrator instructions…per their contract.
Kamen123 simply had to agree to cooperate profesionally during the testing process to be paid. He insulted other parties numerous times and was warned to simply stop it or he would forfeit. In the same statement in which he agreed to stop, he gave 2 additional insults. His account was also closed for not following arbitrrator insturctions…per his contract.
All funds were returned to Paris2.â€
2
11
2006
Justin (11:00:22) :
While I didn’t read much into Kamen123’s response since the link he provided didn’t list much actual information other than “they’re bad…they suck…they don’t understand english….”, I still feel a little concerned about the arbitration process.
Looking over RAC’s own Terms of Use and the arbitration info on their site (p 3b), there is no information stating what type of training the RAC arbitrators go through. For all I know, they may sit down with another arbitrator, get shown the ropes for a day and get told to start arbitrating the next day. I would love to see RAC update these terms to show what training their arbitrators are required to have before they start and what training they get onsite. You can’t just take a coder like me and have them dig into someones bid requests looking for any violations either party made and then rule against who ever made the most mistakes.
2
11
2006
kamen123 (13:20:23) :
Hi Justin
You did not spend enough time reading the link
It’s quite simple and quite clear so I’ll tell you with several words:
everyone waching rentacoder for long time will see that the majority of the projects on this site are quite small(patches for several hundreds)
TakeReal confirmed too
this obviously shows that serious and bigger projects go far away from rentacoder
do you know why? because rentacoder abitrators turn every project into patch
And this way they spoil any bigger project with endless stupidity
:-)
:-)
there are more details at
http://www.spamspotter.com/2006/09/12/doing-business-with-rac-rentacoder-be-careful
and
http://ming.tv/flemming2.php/__show_article/_a000010-001018.htm
TakeReal