Happy Monday Turkers!
Ah Monday the worst day of the week from many....But not for me. Despite once being an avid believer in Garfield's "Mondays Suck". I now have much love for Mondays. For me they are not the start of a new work week...But rather a day to relax and watch the clouds roll by.
And of course do a little Turking....I have such HITs to choose from as Collect US school district contact information, Write a short Muslim Sci-Fi story!, Restaurant Verification, Look up information for things from various lists, Rank Your Top 3, and of course A Penny for Your Thoughts.
Now all of these HITs are pretty much fun.....None pay well...Most pay horribly...But mTurk currently is a place to hang out...And mess around and get paid while doing it. A mentality that perhaps the site should reflect. Now of course you can go through painstaking HITs such as Podcast Transcribing and make some actual dough. But if you're not low on cash and not freakishly fast at typing, Why? All of these HITs are fun...In fact I've spent hours doing much more frustrating and annoying tasks in video games with my only motive being the "privilege" of doing an even harder task.
I've read a few articles since Salon.com's article on mTurk that call mTurk a virtual sweatshop (though Salon's article is informative and doesn't take sides). Now I'm asking how so? Now I can see some mentally ill person trying to pay their bills with mTurk rather then going out and getting a job (or second job if needed)...But the fact is mTurk is a place to waste some free time, and get paid for it...Extra cash to spend on weekends. These people aren't repressed....Admittedly underpaid many times but they can easy turn there backs from such HITs and the price will go up (which I suggest doing in some cases).
And despite low prices mTurk surpassingly has yet to have any large number of foreigners living in low cost areas taking it over (that I know of...) I credit this mostly to mTurk being in English and the only payment options being transferring money to a US Bank Account and to an Amazon.com Gift Certificate balance. If I do ever hear of true "sweatshops" being setup by Americans in foreign countries to have low income workers work all day on mTurk I will be rather disturbed (unless the conditions are somehow good) But until then give it break, the Turk is great, the workers are happy (sorta...We do love to complain though). And the Requesters although they are coming slowly, keep coming. mTurk's future is bright. Keep up the good work everyone, it's been a blast...And guess what? Only 3 months or so till mTurk's B-Day (Don't check my math...)! I'll have to get Requesters to post some crazy fun HITs that day, maybe force Turkers to get the high score on some game or go through a scavenger hurt or something.
Or maybe some sort of massive puzzle that all the Turkers have to complete in 24 hours (as a team)...And if they don't....All of the HITs get rejected! (I think that's a violation of TOS...) But ya...I'll have to think up of something fun and make it happen (don't count on me though...heh) Anyways keep it up, it's been great so far.
And of course.....HAPPY MONDAY TURKERS!
And of course do a little Turking....I have such HITs to choose from as Collect US school district contact information, Write a short Muslim Sci-Fi story!, Restaurant Verification, Look up information for things from various lists, Rank Your Top 3, and of course A Penny for Your Thoughts.
Now all of these HITs are pretty much fun.....None pay well...Most pay horribly...But mTurk currently is a place to hang out...And mess around and get paid while doing it. A mentality that perhaps the site should reflect. Now of course you can go through painstaking HITs such as Podcast Transcribing and make some actual dough. But if you're not low on cash and not freakishly fast at typing, Why? All of these HITs are fun...In fact I've spent hours doing much more frustrating and annoying tasks in video games with my only motive being the "privilege" of doing an even harder task.
I've read a few articles since Salon.com's article on mTurk that call mTurk a virtual sweatshop (though Salon's article is informative and doesn't take sides). Now I'm asking how so? Now I can see some mentally ill person trying to pay their bills with mTurk rather then going out and getting a job (or second job if needed)...But the fact is mTurk is a place to waste some free time, and get paid for it...Extra cash to spend on weekends. These people aren't repressed....Admittedly underpaid many times but they can easy turn there backs from such HITs and the price will go up (which I suggest doing in some cases).
And despite low prices mTurk surpassingly has yet to have any large number of foreigners living in low cost areas taking it over (that I know of...) I credit this mostly to mTurk being in English and the only payment options being transferring money to a US Bank Account and to an Amazon.com Gift Certificate balance. If I do ever hear of true "sweatshops" being setup by Americans in foreign countries to have low income workers work all day on mTurk I will be rather disturbed (unless the conditions are somehow good) But until then give it break, the Turk is great, the workers are happy (sorta...We do love to complain though). And the Requesters although they are coming slowly, keep coming. mTurk's future is bright. Keep up the good work everyone, it's been a blast...And guess what? Only 3 months or so till mTurk's B-Day (Don't check my math...)! I'll have to get Requesters to post some crazy fun HITs that day, maybe force Turkers to get the high score on some game or go through a scavenger hurt or something.
Or maybe some sort of massive puzzle that all the Turkers have to complete in 24 hours (as a team)...And if they don't....All of the HITs get rejected! (I think that's a violation of TOS...) But ya...I'll have to think up of something fun and make it happen (don't count on me though...heh) Anyways keep it up, it's been great so far.
And of course.....HAPPY MONDAY TURKERS!
posted by Eric Cranston at 5:42 PM
4 Comments:
Got some stuff comin' soon. :)
Or maybe some sort of massive puzzle that all the Turkers have to complete in 24 hours (as a team)...And if they don't....All of the HITs get rejected! (I think that's a violation of TOS...) But ya...I'll have to think up of something fun and make it happen (don't count on me though...heh) Anyways keep it up, it's been great so far.
Instead, create a HIT with $0.00 pay and promise that you'll use the bonus system if they succeed and then give each completed assignment a bonus. If they fail you pay $0, but if they solve the puzzle you pay the bonuses. Kind of like how the Research Questions are now.
That might make it around TOS and other complaints since you'd be setting the expectation of no pay.
You say it's surprising people do it even though payment is low? Before Amazon borrowed this idea and converted it into money (since it's nothing new), lots of people were doing similar things with NO payment at all. Stardust, clickworkers, distributed proofreaders, etc.
Interesting read
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