Fair warning; this thread is about equal parts rant and question. For those not interested in hearing about my woes, skip to the paragraph above the quote tag for the actual point. 
I occasionally hire people via sites such as ODesk and Rent-A-Coder to perform one-off tasks. Over time, I’ve come to dread doing this, because every project more complex than “change A to B” results in the same problem when selecting a bidder. Doomed effort though it may be, I’m looking for a way to head this off at the pass whenever possible.
Essentially, it seems that nobody is much interested in completing any given project in the manner specified the project description. My bid requests almost always include very specific requirements for how the project must be done; these requirements might be (usually are) counterintuitive on their face, but in each case I have my reasons for requesting that it be done in that manner. Inevitably, bidders will design a “solution” that achieves the same end result, but completely ignores the method requirements.
For (fictional and oversimplified) example, let’s say I request a program that reads a Word document one character at a time, copies each character, and pastes it sequentially into a new, blank Word document, unless that character is a capital D. I state very specifically in my requirements that that’s what the program must do; ambiguity, in other words, is not the issue. Without fail, the bidder will note that the end result is a copy of the document with all instances of ‘D’ removed, write a program that does that instead, and try to claim that the project is completed. What the bidder doesn’t understand is that I have a process that I intend to use in tandem with this program that [seventeen pages of unnecessary and none-of-the-bidder’s-business-anyway explanation snipped] and thus requires the new document to be created one character at a time.
For a real-life example, see this thread. The “other boards” I mention that I’ve asked are actually contractors I tried to hire; I was ashamed to admit that at the time. The thread also contains a pretty good example of the sort of lengthy explanation for my requirements which I see no reason to provide to a one-off contractor. I went through five coders — bid accepted, money escrowed, failed solution, polite correction, refusal on the coder’s part to complete the project as originally described, formal dispute, full refund (every time; again, my descriptions are not unclear) — before finally accepting that I apparently could not give people money to actually do as I asked.
Currently, the only way I can avoid this is to go through a fifteen-round song and dance routine with each bidder before accepting their bid (Have you read the description; have you REALLY read the description; state the purpose and method of the project to me in your own words; please post something that indicates that you have actually read the description; can you complete the project exactly according to the description that you’ve now claimed five times to have read and understood, etc, etc).
What I’m looking for in this thread, besides an opportunity to vent my frustration (thanks for reading), is a well-phrased piece of boilerplate to add to each project description that states, as professionally yet unambiguously as possible, the following sentiment.
I don’t want to it come off as adversarial (hence the need for just a tad bit of a rewrite to the above), but I do want it clear that I will not tolerate the deliberate ignoring of my requirements. So…any suggestions?
