[cdolan92]

I presume you mean self-promotion/self-upVoting when you say 'playing'?

I think the solution is somewhat similar to how google became a success - build off of reputable links. Employers must link to their personal LinkedIn pages, company websites, an online record that they are who they say they are (either a D-U-N-S repository, or an incorporation document, etc etc). Yes, it can be spoofed - but if someone leaves either a glowing or awful review, you at least can look them up.

Likewise for freelancers. Many have profiles around the web, but it can be a struggle to find enough for a third party 'character check' - for instance, Salesforce Developers are in the AppExchange network, or the Force.com boards... I'm sure a ruby developer is in a completely different space!

In a certain sense, this needs to be a yelp for developers - reviews are valued and sought after. Bad reviews are feared, and its a somewhat ubiquitous place to find information on developers in a variety of spaces (Ruby,PHP,Salesforce,Obj-C,Java...)