@ Ryanap: I'm not sure what caused the split-lines problem. Perhaps now might be a good time to set up your support account at: http://support.castingwords.com/ Then you can submit a support request asking CW to check your transcript and explain the problem. BTW, you might also want to create an account on the workers' site at: http://turkers.castingwords.com/ ... Since you are new to CW, you may also want to be aware of the following. After you've submitted a few transcripts, CW might drop your PPT qualification temporarily (possibly preventing you from doing further CW HITs) until they review your early work. That's normal, but it can happen without warning. If all is well your PPT should be restored within a few days, and CW should send you some further introductory information. Those communications can proceed through the aforementioned support site. Replies to support inquiries might sometimes come through to your email, but not always (in my experience). You'll need to visit the support site to check for replies to any support inquiries you've submitted. Open inquiries that you've recently submitted might be found by clicking the "Check Your Existing Requests" link on the support site nav-bar. However, at any time, CW might move your message (and any replies) into the Resolved/Closed area, which you can find by clicking "View your recently solved and closed requests" on the right side of the support page.
You put that you put ellipses when speakers interrupted each other- That could be what they mean. You can email support on their support site and ask for specifics. They help a lot. You are only supposed to transcribe interruptions if they include something meaningful. So if they person is just saying "OK" "Yeah" etc- Don't interrupt a sentence for it. Only if they interject something of value. I would told this by support. Honestly some graders don't look at much and just pass it on. But the transcripts are supposed to be easy to read as it says in the guide- So constantly cutting off what someone is saying for "yes, yeah OK" etc, would affect the ability to read it a lot. But an editor will look at that. Some editors and graders are a bit too picky at times- or even don't go by the guide- You will definitely need a support account in case that happens and you think a grade is unfair. Just one question- Did you make sure to put a line in between each speaker? Like this- Woman 1: Woman 2: And so on, and also paragraphs? Getting a 6 will take one point away from you, which means anything below 80 you won't be able to do their HITS. I would contact support right away and send them a message. Detailed. They get back quickly. Can you put up an example as to how you did it? Mind you, not with the actual transcript or anything in it of course- Just like an example of how you did it? The only thing I can think is, you either did too many ellipses and keyed too many non-value interruptions- or you didn't put in line breaks. Support can access your transcription and let you know. I am sorry your first one went so bad. I don't think many deserve to lose a point on a first transcription. It is good to write in the comments box before submitting anything you are unsure about etc so they are not so harsh and can give pointers. My first week was brutal too. I hope some of this helps and I hope CW support doesn't take a point away from you. Sign up for the turkers CW site mentioned above too. It will have more feedback if there was any more given. http://support.castingwords.com/home It sounds like it was probably an ellipses problem. Support will sort it out and help you. Just in case it is a rogue grader or editor. They should be clear and detailed but many are not.
I will admit support is great with castingwords. They are not afraid to answer your questions, since they prefer you get it right the first time. Don't be surprised if they ask you to work different type of hits, and even raise your rating to do so. I would never ask them to do this though!
Do you have Works or Word on your computer? The only funky formatting issue then would be with the smart quotes, apostrophes, and ellipses. That can be changed directly in the program or each instance after you've moved it over to the HIT page. As stated, CW support is really very nice. They want people to do well. If you're wiling to fix mistakes and consistently improve they're willing to work with and help you. You type/write well and pay attention to detail (it seems), so if there is some issue that can be worked out it could be a good gig for you.
If you need a good word program, OpenOffice is also good,if you dont have Microsoft Office or anything like that.
I know a couple of you mentioned that sometimes when you contact CW, replies don't always come through to email. I feel like a flaming idiot right now, because I just found replies to all my emails and support requests that I had not seen before. I guess being a part of the "RIGHT NOW" generation/society has its pitfalls. I usually check those tickets for a few hours, and then just figure that they'll fix it without replying. They do fix things, they do reply, just not always via email, and not always immediately, lol. All my issues got resolved, and I just figured they didn't have time to update me via email. I realized this today when I got an email about an extension, and I went on the support site to see which one they were talking about. That's when I saw all those replies. ZOMG. Anyway, this forum rocks! #stilllearningstuff
lmao...same shit happened to me - back when I figured out what open/closed/other places to look for my tickets happened. Each and every stinkin stupid mail I'd sent them, they'd kindly replied to lol
HITs containing 'cw bte' 1-10 of 627 Results Holy...I've never seen the straight transcription HITs count be so high. Most times it's been under 200 when just searching 'cw', and that would include what i'm not qualified for. Color me excited
There was about 150+ 2-4 min audio files I did the difficult audio on last night. That is probably one reason
...to the person that has to edit my jobs from the artist. i'm so stinking sorry last time i did these, an editor put all the fillers back in. so i thought 'well, better keep them in there because of what happened last time'. ugh. heard from cw. my bad.
WOW, holy crap. It looks like it probably was a word wrap thing. I'm working on something unrelated to CW or transcription right now, and I've noticed some very strange things happening as I try to use text that I wrote in notepad. Line breaks seemingly entered somehow (?!) even though I never would have broken the line in any of those places. This kind of blow my mind. I can't be completely sure that this happened with CW, as everything looked solid in the "preview" area in the HIT itself, but clearly something strange is going on here. This is a new laptop, but I've never seen something like this happen with notepad before. I thought notepad was supposed to be the kind of spare formatting?! VERY frustrating. [runs off to tinker] OMG! So there's a bug in the current notepad that inserts all kinds of line breaks if you save with word wrap on. And so instead of having a document with minimal formatting, it made it as if I had inserted all those breaks myself! Saving with word wrap turned off (but not manual line breaks inserted anywhere) results in perfectly clean text. Seriously, just kill me. Obviously this is what I get for upgrading my ancient machine. Maybe I should go back to being several OS releases behind the rest of the world. [waves the white flag] However, thank you for the great responses everyone. I got some pretty great tips out of all that, in any event. I tried incredibly hard to make sure that was a quality transcript, too. All that work, only to be foiled by a computer bug.
I'm glad you got it figured out. If....you like doing transcription work but your score for CW has been dropped below 80...well you can write to support and let them know it was a new computer, you weren't aware of some upgrade/bug issues, and that you'd like to try again (knowing how to prevent the previous mistake). That being said, if you don't like transcription -- just chalk it up as a learning experience. Congrats on figuring it out =)
Had it been a bat, it would've bitten me. For future reference for anyone else: The link for closed tickets is not one of the tabs up top. It's on the right-hand side of the support site when you sign in. **** I was working on the bulk HITs, and I was wishing like crazy that I had MS Word. I could have used a macro. Now, everyone uses different words as filler. Since this thread shows up on the Google, I won't put the exact filler used in these, but I typed it at least 137 times, easy. o.0
... why...would a self-professed newbie (per transcriber's notes)...tackle a 21 minute audio right out of the gate? I am genuinely baffled by this.
Heck I am an "oldie" on CW and I only do ones under 2 mins still. Still protecting my PPT score as if it wa s anew born baby. But now they have Scores for grading, approving, editting, and transacribing.
The short ones are my absolute favorites to do. Sure, it takes the same amount of time to accept, check audio, download audio, get started each and every time (under a minute for the process)--- but those long ones are intimidating to me. I also like protecting my ppt and the more transcriptions I do, the better my overall average will be. Might dive into the long ones when the house is all quiet starting next week.
I'm confused as to how the bonuses work? I have done 3 transcriptions, first was graded 7, second was graded an 8 by the editor but I still got a 7, and third is up right now for grading. I've gotten the emails saying I got $.xx bonus, but it's not showing up. All I see is the base pay. Am I confusing how the bonuses actually work?
No, you're not. mturk doesn't make it easy to distinguish your bonus pay from your dashboard - except for the "bonus" line near the top. And that happens with the downgrades - some editors' grades are given more weight and their grades stick, while newer graders will give a grade and you'll get a little bit lower (like 8 to a 7, graded 9 but paid for an 8). It mostly happens when you first start, but as your stats improve and your consistency is proven, higher grades stick.