Just by chance I noticed I was researching a couple of those coder-outsourcing sites like

* elance [1]

* rentAcoder [2]

and I spoke with some people that made exceptionelly nice deals there, were very happy - AFTER weeding thru a bunch of crap-heads that just could not deliver...

so the general question now is - what - except from the "community" rating on those boards can help select the right coder...

the thing portable reputation [3] is another buzzword I heard recently... not sure if that will help... a simple number doesn't scale well to the wide differentation in software projects...

any helps and inputs appreciated...