Sure, but my point was that being "interested" in accessibility (eg developing Siri capabilities for accessibility) seems somewhat incompatible with Touch Bar. Either care about accessibility or don't. But don't develop (and over-hype) tools that are going a step backward w/r/t accessibility while at the same time claiming to be super interested in accessible technology.

Ok, Apple, but your half-baked notion that the Touch Bar is the cool, revolutionary future of the MBP seems to be at odds with accessibility in some important ways.

This has been bothering me SO MUCH. Props, fellow UX-er.

Kristin Lavransdatter. Big, big book.

Uh huh. And I said in my first post that this community is not always the most welcoming. ;)

What I'm doing here is contributing feedback, as a member who posts rarely, in order to say that I don't think this is a question of "terrible ideas" (your words) versus really "genius" ideas (your proposed plan). I'm expressing concern because if a too-limited number of people with too-similar views determines what the "proper" threshold is, the determination might in the end work against building a community of value. I'm not saying your solution is wrong. Since you seem to place a lot of value in being right, I suppose it's important that you hear that. I'm saying your solution is perhaps not the most inclusive, even if it is in the end the best of all possible solutions to this problem.

Ok, well, I think I was mostly concerned with the specifics of what constitutes having "commented enough and received enough up votes for your commentary." If that threshold were too high, folks like me might be barred from participating when they wanted to. So, I was just contributing feedback toward any such plan from the standpoint of not posting much. You obviously have a system in mind that you think will make dealing with spam simple. All I'm saying is that it's probably not quite as simple as it might seem-- else we might have had a solution quite a while ago.

Sure, and I agree that spam could be better addressed here. I was only trying to point out that your proposed system would seem to penalize people like me who like to come to read and perhaps only very occasionally post.

As a frequent reader but infrequent poster in DN, this solution doesn't seem to be the most inclusive. I don't post frequently because the community is not always the most welcoming, but I read frequently because it's a good place to learn the trade.

I know the drill. I'm in a full-time position in a pretty intense studio, and my freelance work has been on an upward trajectory ever since I started doing serious gigs a year or so ago.

Here's what I tell myself to stay sane, though I'll admit that these are often aspirational rather than hard rules.

1. If you're getting more work than you can handle, raise your rates.
2. Reserve a few nights each week for down time. Accept only enough freelance work to spend 3 or 4 nights a week doing the gigs, and be diligent about respecting your down time.
3. Bake timelines into your work agreements, and communicate that you'll be less available to your clients if they choose to mope/procrastinate/doodle around/generally ignore your timelines.
4. Keep in mind that the intensity of your current work schedule is sort of a life phase that you'll go through for a while. Save up that cash, work hard as long as you don't burn out, and know that this energy won't stay around your whole life, so use it well while you can, and do good. Help people.

So after I posted this, I got an email from the org that said, "Haha! I forgot to include the part that says we also want you to do a website!"

Uh. Right! Ok. That sort of responds to your point about the vagueness of that request, and I agree that it seemed totally vague/disconnected.

Thanks for your input, and it makes a lot of sense to break this into two main stages (brand and web). What is weird about this is that the org that contacted me is actually bidding on the project, and they're subcontracting me to do the design pieces, but want to know approximately what I'd charge. There's a step removed in the "whether the client is a good fit" process that makes it a little difficult for me to go through my usual calculations.