I'm at the stage where I'd like to try one of the hitscrapers, but I hesitate, in case they're against AMT's policies since I don't want to risk my account. Can someone either answer for sure whether or not they're "acceptable" according to Amazon Turk, or point me to a detailed discussion so I can reassure myself that I won't put my account at risk? Thanks!
My friend was "curious" about these so called hitscapers. Well now hes in jail and his entire family are living in a Winnebago. So if you think its worth the risk, go for it.
I don't think you'll find a definitive answer anywhere. The majority of full time workers use scrapers, you'll probably be fine.
Well, he was probably caught reselling them on a street corner. Winnebago's are/were great RV's...I'm not sure I'd mind...with an Air Conditioner of course.
I suspected there was no clear answer - but I wanted to put it out there and see what other people felt. I was surprised that noone had ever asked. I think I'm losing out to people using 'em..so many of my HITS are "not available" when I try to work on them, and sometimes I'm getting to them within 1s of when they are showing on my search pages.
The authors of the scripts are members of both the Turker Nation forum and this one. The scripts contain extra features for viewing and sorting HITS, making you more efficient. One is called Hit Scraper and Export. Yes, they're all legal and are openly discussed in the forums. They don't change the content, just rearrange the way you see and choose your HITS, ands some add functionality with various buttons. In fact, AMT is redoing their site and is incorporating some of the script features into their programming. If you use Firefox, the extension GreaseMonkey enables the scripts, and must be downloaded first from AMO. Chrome uses an extension too, and maybe someone else can provide the name here. The extensions don't work in Internet Explorer or Opera. There are several links. Some will overlap and others might have newer scripts not in the other lists. Some are linked to tutorials, and the members at both forums are glad to help. And we get lots of "Not available" too http://mturkforum.com/showthread.php?15157-How-To-Scripts-for-Newbies http://mturkforum.com/showthread.php?4501-All-The-Scripts-You-Need-to-Get-Started https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/by-site/mturk.com http://turkernation.com/showthread.php?27111-How-to-use-scripts I've used Firefox almost from the beginning, and I never thought I'd use Greasemonkey. I now have 5 scripts because turkers are so generous with their time.
HITScraper is a script. You can enter search parameters and it will alert you when HITS that match your criteria come up.