This is the Spam Amazon fest 2012 official thread! Ok, jokes aside I think something needs to be done about the way mturk works. We shouldn't be afraid of losing our 'jobs' on mturk because of a scamming requester. That's why I propose we come up with a plan on how we think amazon 'rejections' should work. I then propose we have one of our excellent writers make a draft for us to all email Mturk with our suggestion. (kinda like they do with senators to get laws passed) Of course, we are still expendable, but perhaps if we get hundreds(or we can get other forums to send the email too) thousands of people saying we need a change. Then perhaps this "beta" crap will get a change for the better. Thoughts on if this would work? Worth a shot?
What is wrong with the current rejection system? If the rejection system were made any more strict, eg: if workers could appeal rejections - we would see mass movement from the mturk platform by requesters. The reason is the requester would have to specifically respond to all appeals. If a requester is posting 50,000 hits on mturk - this level of individual detail would make mturk unrealistic to use as a platform. Thus, no more mturk.
I was rejected for a one cent job today...hurt my feelings, LOL...I don't really need to know why, I guess. It's the requester's perogative; now, if it's a job that pays over $1.00, then maybe they SHOULD be accountable.
Always check TO. It works. If there are no ratings, let someone else be the guinea pig. I have 99.9 percent approval. The 2 rejections I have were user error.
I have 99.9% approval rating with 31k HITs. I stick to the requesters I know. The few times i've deviated from that is when i've gotten my 31 rejects. But if only we didn't have to worry about TO ratings. I'm not saying rejections need to be reversed, or gotten rid of. I don't think that a scamming, or imbecilic requester should keep me from being able to earn more, or be afraid to complete those without a TO rating. Any turker that works daily knows there are thousands of jobs we pass up, or only do a few "tester" hits of to find out it was a legit job, and we could have made $20 an hour. I watched my brother gets screwed over by the Mturk system. He's one of those goodie two shoes that thinks since he's good everyone else is too. He got scammed out the ears by requesters who just didn't wanna pay. I know the quality of work he did was great, I watched him, and that's how I found Mturk in the first place. I would just like to for once, go through the damn list of HITs, see one that's good and DO IT. Instead of doing 10, and waiting for them to approve. Only to find out I could have done thousands. And of course, never see that requester again. Or, do 100 and worry for a week hoping the requester doesn't mass reject them all. Sure, i've got tons of cushion, doesn't mean I want my approval rating to drop. What if I were mass rejected and taken to 98.9%??! *shudders*
I do understand what you mean by just wishing you could get on mturk, do a HIT, and not have to worry about getting paid or not.
Hi, first post. Forgive me for my n00bness but what does TO refer to? A rating system for requester's? I have 6 rejections to date which is starting to upset me. To be fair my first was my fault as I "didn't follow instructions" on a HIT that didn't allow me to follow its own instructions, and I submitted anyways. My second was from an admitted glitch from the requester, which I hope to have reversed. And four others from The Public Group, who I am now going to stay away from. I am learning my lesson slowly.
TO is Turkopticon. You can get it here: http://www.turkopticon.differenceengines.com/ Also, check out this part of the forum: http://mturkforum.com/forumdisplay.php?36-Resources-for-Workers-amp-Requesters
Me too! I had it in some notes from another turker, but wasn't sure what it was and hadn't had time to look yet! That will be a great help. Thanks.
I figured out how to see who rejected what ... automated reply from Zwigglers....first time trying them - won't do it again!
It was just an idea, though it doesn't seem to be well liked, so never mind. I'll keep doing 10 test HITs and wishing I had done more when they approve.
But what I was originally thinking was something akin to what ProductRnR has done with the qualifications. Just to strip them once you've done poorly, or block you like crowdflower does. But do so in a way that it's easy for a requester to implement without making the job posting part harder and time consuming.
I get what you are saying but in my short time here it doesn't appear that Amazon would want to change anything. It's no different than working as a temp for a temp service. When it comes down to it, their client is the one that pays the bills, the worker is expendable and easily replaced. As you figured out, the best thing is to build a safety cushion. It seems like it's hard to do when you are first starting. Then you don't have to worry about a few rejections and the higher approved hits you have, the safer you are. It's somewhat reassuring when you have 10k plus hits approved and see the script that shows the worst case scenario showing how many rejections it would take to do major damage. Then there is the issue of being hard blocked. There should be be more protection for the worker. Overall it's set up crappy so you have to know how to play the game and hope for the best. I really don't see much changing unfortunately.
