Crowd-Workers browser extension discussion

Discussion in 'Do My HIT!' started by CrowdWorkersEXT, May 13, 2015.

  1. CrowdWorkersEXT

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    Crowd Workers browser extension discussion

    Hi all,

    I'm here to start a discussion about our project, the Crowd-Workers extension. This extension helps you track your work on mTurk, and it also aggregates data from all who use it, so you can see what other workers are doing and join in on that work. The intent is to help you easily and quickly find other work to do to reduce the amount of time you spend searching for another HIT.

    Features include:

    Keep track of your hourly rate: Our extension will calculate your hourly rate, and let you track how much you make each day
    Recommendations: We will recommend tasks for you that will be lucrative
    Hourly rates for new tasks: We will aggregate statistics across all workers and give you an estimate of how much you'll make on new tasks
    Will my work be rejected? We track statistics about how often a Requester approves or rejects work to help you to decide whether you want to work for them
    Find high paying work: Our web service lets you sort tasks by their hourly pay rate, and lets you follow good Requesters and ignore bad ones
    When will I get paid? Our web service gives you access to statistics about how long it typically takes a Requester before they pay their workers

    Coming soon - goal setting: Visualize your goals and how you're doing in trying to achieve them

    I'm posting here to ask you guys to please give the extension a try and let me know if you find it beneficial. I'd also love to hear your feedback on the features it already has and any you think it needs.
     
    #1 CrowdWorkersEXT, May 13, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 24, 2016
  2. CrowdWorkersEXT

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    Crowd Workers browser extension discussion

    I take it no one has tried it out? That's a shame, I'd really love to know how it works (or doesn't) from a Turker perspective. This tool is intended to help you guys make more money, and the more I can tweak it to give you what you need, the better.
     
    #2 CrowdWorkersEXT, May 14, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 24, 2016
  3. CrowdWorkersEXT

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    I'm going to include questions asked elsewhere and answers provided so that anyone interested can learn more.

    The other is what the data will be used for (from his end).
    We are just tabulating how much time people spend on mTurk related sites, so that we can see how much time people spend researching work (unpaid) versus actively doing work (paid).


    Honestly, I'm hesitant to try out a tool like this if I don't know who made it. It is a Turker project? A university research project? A private company? I also have concerns about what's being done with the information the tool is gathering. Is it being collected and a profile built about me? Is it being shared with other parties? What is the tool maker doing with this information?
    It is a university research project and all data is only accessible by myself and my team. No profile is built, the information is aggregated and will only be accessed by my team in order to determine how much unpaid time is being spent searching for work versus how much is being spent actually working. It will not be shared with other parties without anonymizing the workers or aggregating the information.

    Is the extension also pulling all your data from your dashboard? Such as; HITs completed, Total Earnings, Approved/Rejected, etc? When you install the extension it pulls your worked ID along with your name, so I'm assuming you also capture the rest of my information from my mturk dashboard? You're able to access my data on mtg via the extension. Are you gathering anything from the forums past the amount of time a forum tab is open and if so what are you gathering beyond that? How secure is it?

    The only information it looks for on your mTurk dashboard is whether HITs have approved, rejected, or are pending to update the Your Stats and Track pages on CW. It uses that data to calculate all of the statistics available on the Your Stats page, and will use it for goal tracking when that rolls out. It does NOT capture your name or any other information from your profile.

    As to MTG and other forums, it only tracks the amount of time you spend there. Nothing from your profile or posts here is scraped.

    All of the data is on a secure server and is being managed by a professional web development company.

    Thanks for your input.

    I'll update this as more questions are answered.
     
    #3 CrowdWorkersEXT, May 14, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: May 14, 2015
  4. CrowdWorkersEXT

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    Hey all, we're here with an update! We've taken all of the feedback we received previously and rolled it into major changes to the extension. All of the problems that were brought to us have been rectified, and some new, helpful features added. Here are the features available now:

    Keep track of your hourly rate
    Our extension will calculate your hourly rate, and let you track how much you make each day

    Recommendations
    We will recommend tasks that are best for you

    Hourly rates for new tasks
    We will aggregate statistics across all workers and give you an estimate of how much you'll make on new tasks

    Will my work be rejected?
    We track statistics about how often a Requester approves or rejects work to help you to decide whether you want to work for them

    Find high paying work
    Our web service lets you sort tasks by their hourly pay rate, and lets you follow good Requesters and ignore bad ones

    When will I get paid?
    Our web service gives you access to statistics about how long it typically takes a Requester before they pay their workers

    Work History
    We provide a searchable list of the HITs you've completed including PandA links

    Goal Setting
    Visualize your goals and how close you are to achieving them

    Statistics Monitoring
    See how your statistics are changing over time

    Favourite List & Blacklist
    Keep lists of Requesters you like and those you want to avoid

    Alerts
    Be notified when HITs are added to your queue or your queue is emptied

    Is this HIT group good?
    We also track statistics about each HIT group, such as how many HITs were rejected and average completion time

    [strike]In light of wanting to increase transparency, we want to let you know that we currently have two known issues we're working on and should have an update to rectify this week:
    - only hourly goal setting is working
    - the In Progress section of the extension shows HITs that are already complete

    Since they're minor issues, we thought we'd go ahead and reach out to the workers immediately knowing they'll be fixed soon.[/strike] We're posting here to ask you all to give the extension a try and let us know what you think. Is there something missing? Does it help you work? Is there anything we can do to convince you to try it if you haven't already? Thanks for your input!
     
    #4 CrowdWorkersEXT, Jan 24, 2016
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 25, 2016
  5. CrowdWorkersEXT

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    We've rolled out another new version this morning which fixes the two issues mentioned above. Please let us know what you think!
     
  6. CrowdWorkersEXT

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    We've had such an overwhelming response that our servers are lagging a bit, and this is leading to refresh errors on AMT for new users. If you're having this issue we ask that you please wait until you're done working for today to install and Sync the extension (you'll find the button to do so both on the Analytics page of our website and in your extension menu, just click the CW icon to find it). Let it run overnight and you should be caught up by morning and the issue should resolve itself. Thanks for trying our extension out!
     
  7. CrowdWorkersEXT

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    We're also running a sweepstakes for Turkers who give our extension a try. You can enter through our simple form and then use the extension for at least a week. On March 22nd we'll draw two winners and send them $25 Amazon.com gift cards. Refer your friends to get even more entries! Good luck to all who enter!
     

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