Why can I not use the forums to warn others about a bad agency?

As you might guess, public criticims tend to be explosive, often generating dozens or even hundreds of emails, phone calls, even legal interactions.

Furthermore, with over many thousands of registered users, ProZ.com is much more volatile than existing payment practices lists, which have fewer than 1000 members. For this reason, a single critical posting at ProZ.com usually demands hours of careful attention on the part of administrators, moderators, and bystanders.

After dealing with a number of well-intentioned criticisms, ProZ.com's staff has come to the conclusion that we simply can not handle administration of an open public forum that allows criticisms, no matter how justified they may be. That is why we created the Blue Board--to meet the information need in a structured, and manageable, way.

Is the Blue Board useful? Yes. Is it everything one could hope for? No--nor does it claim to be. But we are constantly improving upon it, at a pace that is practical given the scale of our business.