Hi, folks, I often see people posting on here about their approval ratings. Some seem unaware of what level of approval rating is actually a good one. This is probably because at school, at least in the US, 90% and above gets you an A. This is not at all true on MTurk. 90% is really very low here. It's important to shoot for one that's a lot higher. (I do realize that some folks have gotten mass-rejected by certain requesters, causing their approval ratings to crash. And that's not necessarily their fault. I'm not blaming anyone for low approval ratings, just offering some information about what good ranges are.) A decent approval rating starts at 96%, and ones that can actually be called good or great are higher. In that, I entirely agree with this blog post. (By the way, I encourage all Turkers to read as much stuff like that as they can---anything that helps you understand better how MTurk works or how requesters think is going to help you out.)
IMO I think everyone needs to be at 98% or better. If you were a victim of a mass rejection, then your goal should be finding batch hits that bring you inline with this number. Making money should be last on your priority. I know that is heresy for some, but with the way things have been going down lately, you cannot afford to have a horrible approved to rejected ratio. Just my 2 cents. Shoot, I wish the state of Florida would jump on that bandwagon! In High School 94% was an A. College is even worse. They hand out pluses and minuses. Horrible! Sorry for the tangent
Excellent strategy suggestion. If you have to choose between money and getting your rating up to 98%, the rating comes first at that point. It's one of the few times it's easy to justify hanging out with low-paying requesters who are practically guaranteed not to reject. ITA that the higher, the better. If you can stay at 99% or higher, you'll never have any trouble. I posted this partly as a general response to some posts I've seen that indicated no real knowledge of what approval stats levels are actually good. (More an impression than anything confirmed, but MTurk may be cracking down on people with low approval ratings. So this may become a nonissue if eventually no one is left who has a low rating.)
I'm proud of my 99.9 Anything below a 99 - definitely work on getting numbers up. Why settle for anything less when some HITs are easy and approve quickly?
I kept a 100% Right until 4k, then got 2 rejects from Taggered for no apparent reason. Oh well, it's back to 100% rounded now, and I'm a little more open to taking risks, so in a way it's a good thing.
Honestly anything under 99% is not a very good rating. The important thing to remember if you are new is dont do big batches of hits if you are not absolutely sure they will approve. Early on it takes 99 approved hits to make up one rejection and later it takes many more hits. You need to be careful and guard your approval rating because a run of rejections can easily get your account suspended.
I think 95 is the line between good and bad. 98 is the line between good n best. I am now at 97. hav batch rejection vch makw my % to 97. Done around 40000. Now for each 1000 hits my rate increases by .10 points. So long way to go for me to reach 99.
best one so far I seen in mturk. keep up th good work. r u a master? During my first 6 month i dont knoe abt turkopticon. so got som rejection frm usual rejectin requesters. But from there onwards extremely careful in selecting the good one. I got around 75 dollars as bonus from requesters who never mentioned bonus as a part of hits yet give it to workers who give extremely good results
I'm glad it's sparking so much discussion on the subject! Personally, I'm going to stick with 96% as my floor for what I think is even acceptable (this does not mean I think it's one to be proud of). And as I've said, I think anyone below 98% needs to be focused only on getting their approval rate up. That seems especially true if someone's style is to make money through HIT volume or by often working for requesters who may be new to them. When that's the case, a Turker needs a bigger buffer...partly also to prevent disappointment at turning out to be ineligible for a new requester's tasty HITs. I'm at 99.7% with just under 3500 approved. I've occasionally taken chances on writing HITs by unknown requesters or explored some with requesters whose bad TO seems unfounded. Mostly it's ended up being worth the risk, occasionally not so much. For me, because of my low-volume method of getting to a double-digit hourly pay rate, it's a huge day if I do 30 HITs! And that, plus the fact that I really don't put effort now into getting my approval rating higher, means that I've accepted mine is going to be slow to creep up to the 99.9% range. Just not a priority for me, but I also know that none of my regular requesters will reject, and I know the main ones I Turk for aren't going anywhere. That's a lot, in Turking, and I am glad it helps me feel much less need to hustle. But if I had a different Turking style, I'd definitely be spending my spare time getting my approval rate up to the max again.
Well, I have learned how easily one can lose a good rating over 98 and plummet to 95. I agree (for us noobs especially), when doing new batches not to get too carried away unless you understand EXACTLY what is being asked. Do a few, see if they are approved and go from there. I am taking everyone's advice and working on getting that approval rating back up.