In order to not treat designers unfairly or leave them in the dark a fair system must exist that forces CHs to at least look at the designs, give stars or comments. It has happened that designers have done work and entered late, but within the timeframe and a winner had been selected. This is unfair and a waste of time. A designer should know if the CH saw the design and there should be some kind of mark or acknowledgement for this. It is ok to not leave a comment if there are many designs, but one should know if it was at least considered.

Sometimes designers who are not participating in a contest, write comments like voting for x design (obviously friends, who intended to guide the CH to choose a design) or saying how good it is...
In other ocassions I saw some people who advertise webistes (for example the user “Tenaris” who sell web templates), and never entered a contest, look at this comment:
Tenaris:
“hey CH! watch out with these templates... don't let them fool you
http://tinyurl.com/yc7jkzf”

I suggest that nobody can leave a comment in the “discussion” unless is particpating in the contest.
And if you want to ask something to the CH or a designer, before entering, you can do it contact them in the profile area.

We can’t eliminate 100% this behaviors but at least no one could play anymore with serious designers who are working in a contest.

Please vote for this.
Thanks.

I am sick and tired of all of these fake profiles! You will be winning at one point and "someone" who just got a profile will win on their FIRST try! This has happened a lot on this site. Someone (I Think) from the company or a friend will see everybody's logo and make something, if not exactly like it, then extremely close to yours! Also after that contest, they never even log back on. I think this needs to be stopped and fast! I hate losing to fake profiles don't you?

Here is my suggestion to protect designs.

All designs should have a 99design automatic watermark on it in and only the contest owner should be able to see the design with no watermark.

This will prevent public to steal design.

Hope this will be implement.

Also, all past contest should not appear in the search engine. All contest should not appear on Google.

Thanks

I know that "There are officially no coded contests on 99designs" – but who cares about official, if there are still plenty of CH's who speak like: "We want a website that..."
Every time I read something like this, I can't figure out whether they want just a PSD or they want a website, coded and ready to go - and many people still want coding, despite the "no coded contests" rule...
Come on, many CH's do not even know that design has to be coded, or how much work is involved in coding. How am I supposed to manage client's expectations? Ask them? In like 80% of web design contests there's first comment that says: "Do you want coding?"

I think that contest holders who abandon their contests should not be able to request refunds. It's one thing if they are actively participating, giving feedback and star ratings. But if they just abandon the contest, I don't think they should have the right to ask for their money back. The contest, in such an instance, failed largely at their own hand.

Let a CH leave comment and rating about a designer after the contest is over so other CHs can see if they designer is easy to work with during and after the process. Maybe allow CHs to rate or comment on all Designers, mostly to give props to designers that have tried hard.