As a rule, you can toss every response you get in the first hour. As you've noticed, there are tons on people on those sites who send out the same canned proposal to every single listing. That level of attention is a good indicator of how the rest of your project will go if you're foolish enough to take one of them on.
Wait a few days. If you've written a good project description (and if you're a bit lucky), you'll start to see a few qualified proposals trickle in.
This is the main problem with freelancing sites. The race to the bottom finished years ago, and the result is that there are simply no good developers or designers left there. It's actually an opportunity waiting for talented newcomers, since a single person showing up and acting professionally would get the job described by this poster (and everybody else who goes there seriously looking to build something).
I took the time to write up my experiences with these freelance sites a few years back:
Wait a few days. If you've written a good project description (and if you're a bit lucky), you'll start to see a few qualified proposals trickle in.
This is the main problem with freelancing sites. The race to the bottom finished years ago, and the result is that there are simply no good developers or designers left there. It's actually an opportunity waiting for talented newcomers, since a single person showing up and acting professionally would get the job described by this poster (and everybody else who goes there seriously looking to build something).
I took the time to write up my experiences with these freelance sites a few years back:
http://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/09/how-to-fail-at...