Not that it is ready yet but, I and a few other developers are working on an invitation only site where existing members can invite new developers and designers

Not that it is ready yet but, I and a few other developers are working on an invitation only site where existing members can invite new developers and designers. They will amass a reputation score based on projects thy complete from project sponsors as well they will have a recommendation score that will be calculated on the reputation score of developers and designers they invite. If it gets too low we assume that their opinion on other talent is not that good and remove their permission to invite people. It is our hope that it will promote a community of the best of the best. Anyway, the reason I post is that we had discussed providing location based searches that listed people based on their reputation. It does not help you know and for that you could use http://www.hnhackers.com/ http://www.hnhackers.com/ . They allow location search and it is a site composed of freelancers that frequent HN. I don't know if that is a substitute for reputation but there are a lot of talented people that frequent this board.