I submitted several articles and callouts yesterday, but I haven't heard anything back. How long, on average, does it take to be accepted? Also, have you ever been rejected and not paid? (Sorry if this has been posted before. I'm a newbie.)
Articles are currently taking anywhere from 2-3 days to 10 working days. Call-outs usually go through in about 24 hours, give or take
Thanks! Thank you for your reply. I was kind of freaking out that I might not get paid. Do you get paid for everything as long as they're not completely awful?
I had one article early on that they just HATED. they sent me a response that said, no way in hell are we using that, but we're going to pay you anyway. From the people I'm talking to, they will pay for everything, but then they will either limit you or not allow you to do certain things. For instance, one person I know did a bunch of call-outs in one day and had several bad feedback responses. She chalked it up to rushing. For the next week, they limited her to only 4 of those at a time until they were approved. Once she slowed down and paid attention, she got no or good feeback, and the gave her full access again. Never once did they refuse to pay. My experience is that they are a great requester.
I've had articles pending for going on 8 days now. Emailed them two days ago in the morning and still haven't heard a reply. It's good to know that other people are in the same boat with it taking up to 10 days. I am annoyed they have yet to send me an email about the delay, since I've heard they are surprisingly fast at turnaround times. I'm more concerned about the quick hits such as "review: article title" taking days and days to get approved. Are they extraordinarily busy lately, can someone speak to why the delay might be going on?
CS is saying that you should contact them after 10 working days only. They have a backlog right now because they don't have enough editors. If you email them after 10 working days, you'll either get your approval or a response.
BTW, we've been doing all our CS TT discussions here: http://mturkforum.com/showthread.php?4620-Crowdsource-Top-Tier-Writing-Hits
Oh, okay. Sorry, I had heard that after 7 business days it's appropriate to email. Thanks for the redirect, I'm new to this forum, apologies.
No need to apologize. They have a reputation for very quick turnaround, so when an unusual turnaround exists, like 7 business days, we get concerned. The issue has just come up the last couple of weeks. Once they get editors in place, we'll probably go back to the 24-48 hour turnaround.
I email CS at least once a week with questions or feedback (I am annoying, I know). Generally, I get a response back on the same day. However, it took them three days to get back to me on the last one. Now big long story time: I think the new bonus program overwhelmed them. About two weeks ago, they offered $50 to any Top Tier writer who wrote 25 articles in a week. I went for it, and I think a lot of others did, too. There are more than a thousand Top Tier writers. So all those articles had to be graded. As far as I know, there was not a HIT to get the Content Grading qual in the past few months. CS had been notifying the best of the Top Tier writers and giving them the qual on a case-by-case basis. This means that the original pool of Content Graders was pretty much Top Tier Writers, aka people who would make more money writing articles for the bonus than doing grading. They sent out a few emails about Content Grading because a lot of people kept messing up. Then they put up a Content Grading test around the same time the top tier bonus was announced and added some new graders. When I was assigned the qual, there were less than 50 Content Graders. Last time I checked, there were only 96 people with the Content Gradin qual and more than three thousand articles to be graded. So there is a ton of work and about half of the Content Graders are new (and even still, there are less than 100 of us). What makes it worse is that people with the Content Grading qual have a HIT limit-- you have to be assigned Trusted Level Content Grader to do unlimited grading HITs. Besides that, a lot of grades have to be double-checked because people are having a hard time getting it right (and to be fair, the grading rubric could use some clarification). So tons of articles + comparatively few graders + new graders + confusing rubric + HIT limit = long wait ((My source for the numbers is mturk. My source for the CS process is just my own experience: I passed the Top Tier Writing test, then was awarded the Content Grading qual before the test went up, then became Trusted Level about two days ago. ))
Good replies here! I do have one more question I have a qual for article highlight writer. I have written something like 8 " Interesting Callout for an Article" this week. Whenever I click to complete another one, it says "Sorry, you are not eligible to work on this project." Is there a weekly limit on callouts? Any ideas why I can't do anymore? They've all been approved with no feedback. Also, just FYI...all of my "do's and don'ts" articles have been approved, but I am waiting on all the rest from this week to be approved.
I gave up. Had my top tier graded 3 times and denied each time. I got the e-commerce qual but no top tier. I recently submitted a flawless one and they are taking weeks to get back my grade. So that might be a good or a bad sign. They are very slow.
amberkshire -- I've seen that message; I think it's a kind of 'probationary period,' and once your submissions are reviewed, you'll be able to continue working on call-outs. That is one possible explanation. With the backlog of work and the weekend, it might take longer, too. Has anyone doing call-outs gotten a feedback message "this call-out is unrelated to the article'? It's happened to me a few times, and when I click the link to check, I always find I disagree with the feedback. Sometimes the connection isn't obvious unless you read the article, and reviewers probably only read the call-out and title...
I haven't received that message yet, but none of my call-outs have been looked at yet. The good news is that from reading the other articles, I've been able to be more comfortable with the work I've already done. When I work on the call-outs, I look at the title and the headings, scan the info - then find a related and helpful tip that works with the headings. I only take on titles I'm sure I can write a call-out for in less than 5 minutes. To add to the "long wait" question, I submitted my first article HITs on Tuesday after getting the TT Writing qual on Monday. After an email a couple days later, I was told I'd have feedback 'within 24 hours' -- never got it. I understand the huge amounts of articles being submitted and the bottle-necking that's happening for > grading > editing...but I wish they had some very established graders and editors who were able to 'take on' the new articles. New writers will only get better with initial feedback. I'd hate to be making a stupid mistake because I'm new to their format or requirements and continue to do so - making more work for someone else.
I agree with you. As a newbie, I have little idea if I am do things correctly. I am not all that familiar with AP style (used MLA in college), so I need to know if I'm on the right track. Plus, there's the whole pay issue. I could really use that money. My husband's a little leery about the whole pay thing. Tomorrow will be my 10th day working, so I am hoping I see something as far as pay goes by maybe Monday, but all of my statuses that have been approved say "approved--pending payment."
Your 10th day of working with CS, or your 10th day on mturk? Amazon itself puts a ten-day hold on paying new workers.
Right. As soon as your mturk account's past those 10 days (with the days being counted as the ones where you submitted HITs), you'll have a nice payday.
I've been getting my call-outs approved pretty quickly, and I see the new product description hits seem to be approving also, but I have Briefing articles out there that have been sitting since 1/21. I guess we just have to be patient. They should have known this would happen by opening up the bonus program. I have only been a Top Tier writer for about a month, so I don't even try to crank out 25 a week. I usually do one 350 article a day and a few call-outs.
I LOVE the call-outs. I would absolutely do those each and every day -- if it turns out they are available that often. Only a week into this - the only thing I know for sure is that I'll be waiting a while for my money. I figure if I do a certain dollar amount every day it will even out after a couple of weeks and I won't notice the wait as bad.