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I Wasn't Paid

iwasntpaid.com

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Re: I Wasn't Paid

#171

Post by vacri »

mgkimsal wrote: post #167
vacri wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another middle ground would be to name and shame just to thing that are factually part of the public record: "I am suing John Smith in court for non-payment of $9k for work done 3.5 years ago". Don't go into fiery detail, keep it to the facts that are part of the court record. Of course, the hard part is keeping all the opinion stuff out of the blog posts around the fact-only one.

right... well, that's almost what I did. saying where it was, letting someone google my name in nyc and look for court records. i've only sued one person in nyc - it wouldn't be that hard. But, publicizing on my blog, yeah. In some ways I think the moment's passed. If/when we ever get to court, I'll release the name then, unless there's some gag order (am I being too dramatic?)

The difference is that if someone is googling John Smith, they won't find your blog post without his name on it.

Thankfully I've never had to experience court on either side - it looks like it gets expensive very very quickly.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#172

Post by [deleted] »

corin_ wrote: post #85
gk1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately there is no other option. You use the software you're given, and that's it.

If you're browsing random sites that could well be infected, even if you weren't using IE7 the fact that you're on a "secure military network" doesn't stop you from being just as vulnerable as anyone else browsing random sites. Sounds to be like the security of your network has at least one hole in it.

[deleted]

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#173

Post by anthonyb »

timdev2 wrote: post #170
anthonyb wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a site doesn't validate, it might not appear properly in some browsers, reducing your customers' experience of your site. In extreme cases, it might also mean that they can't (eg.) see your buy button, killing your sales.

Validity is completely orthogonal to utility. It's trivial to craft a broken page with an invisible buy button that validates. I don't know of any major ecommerce site that validates.

No, it's not. You might as well say that it doesn't matter if your programmer doesn't use version control, or your surgeon doesn't clean under his nails.

Major e-commerce sites will have tested under every major browser anyway, so invalid HTML won't matter so much to them. Smaller shops don't tend to do as much testing, so it's more important that HTML validates.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#174

Post by lukifer »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #116
pavlov wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you can drop the "for smart people" -- the same kind of magazines that blather about horoscopes tend to run lots of stories along the lines of "How to recognize a narcissist".

no, dumb people just use guessing, actual astrology, etc. smart people use "pattern matching" because it makes bigotry (which is a form of guessing) seem smart.

poTAYto, poTAHto. The fundamental engine of consciousness is fuzzy pattern matching; when done poorly, it's called "guessing", and when done well, it's called "intuition".

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#175

Post by Simo »

just for argument sake: 1 - freelancers union is working very hard to pass the Freelancer Payment Protection Act (S4129/A6698) that grant freelancers the same wage protection as traditional employees and require the Department of Labor to pursue freelancers' unpaid wages holding deadbeat executives personally liable for up to $20,000 and jail time. 2 - on the union website you can find the Contract Creator, a free tool that allows you to easily create a strong (and nationally accepted) contract to protect yourself. my2cents

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#176

Post by thoughtsimple »

gee_totes wrote: post #137

I was involved in the case involving Carlos 'Storm' Martinez, who is an amazing post sound mixer and a stand-up guy. I am a little perturbed to see him mentioned on the site. The design of the site in question was good, no doubt, but it was also riddled with a stolen Neutraface2 font face and the HTML didn't validate. And there was no RoR backend; the whole site was hosted on a GoDaddy shared server. From my understa…

You didn't mention if he really lost the case in court as noted in the post. Did he? Has he refused to pay the settlement? Was there a contract that he refuses to pay? Seems to me that you will have a hard time excusing the details if any are true.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#177

Post by larrys »

patio11 wrote: post #57

This is not a way forward. 1). Work with better clients. You can have invoice collection problems at $50k, too, but they're much less likely than at $500 and you have much better options for... escalation methods at that point. 2). If you're not a bank, stop taking on so much credit risk. Businesses can deal with substantially sterner payment terms than you'd think to offer. If your clients balk, see #1. (Thomas has…

"You can have invoice collection problems at $50k, too, but they're much less likely than at $500"

Where are you getting that from? From my extensive experience with both large and small transactions I don't find that to be the case. Assuming the profit potential is the same would you rather have the risk of 1 50,000 customer or 100 $500 customers? (Let's assume the $50,000 customer is reselling your product at the same margins).

"If you're not a bank, stop taking on so much credit risk. Businesses can deal with substantially sterner payment terms than you'd think to offer"

It's a risk that needs to be evaluated. Be to easy on credit you loose money. To strict you will loose business. Really no different than security policies or spam filters.

It also depends on your margin. If you have a large margin on your product you can afford to take a loss much easier then if you are selling Plasma TV's with very small markup.

Currently one of the products we sell is less than $50 and our cost is less than $10. If someone wants to mail a check, no problem. (Although of course we try and get payment by credit card.) We are making (say) $40 so if we don't get the payment no big deal. Not sure I would say the same if the numbers were 100 times larger though.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#178

Post by hammock »

anthonyb wrote: post #173
timdev2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Validity is completely orthogonal to utility. It's trivial to craft a broken page with an invisible buy button that validates. I don't know of any major ecommerce site that validates.

No, it's not. You might as well say that it doesn't matter if your programmer doesn't use version control, or your surgeon doesn't clean under his nails. Major e-commerce sites will have tested under every major browser anyway, so invalid HTML won't matter so much to them. Smaller shops don't tend to do as much testing, so it's more important that HTML validates.

So what you're saying is it doesn't matter if the HTML validates as long as you test well.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#179

Post by anthonyb »

hammock wrote: post #178
anthonyb wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not. You might as well say that it doesn't matter if your programmer doesn't use version control, or your surgeon doesn't clean under his nails. Major e-commerce sites will have tested under every major browser anyway, so invalid HTML won't matter so much to them. Smaller shops don't tend to do as much testing, so it's more important that HTML validates.

So what you're saying is it doesn't matter if the HTML validates as long as you test well.

How many one man dev shops (which is what we're talking about here) test well, or even in in multiple browsers? So yes, if you get a web site from a one man web design shop, then you should make sure it validates.

If it doesn't, it's probably rendering in quirks mode, and you'll have all sorts of problems with the layout if you need to change it.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#180

Post by minikomi »

patio11 wrote: post #57

This is not a way forward. 1). Work with better clients. You can have invoice collection problems at $50k, too, but they're much less likely than at $500 and you have much better options for... escalation methods at that point. 2). If you're not a bank, stop taking on so much credit risk. Businesses can deal with substantially sterner payment terms than you'd think to offer. If your clients balk, see #1. (Thomas has…

What about the reverse - They paid on time, they get a gold star.
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