Hello everyone, After a very long hiatus (my last hit was in 2009), I have returned to mTurk starting last week. I figured that being gone for so long it would make sense to join a forum to "catch up" on any major changes that have happened. So far, so good-- because of this forum, I figured out why I hadn't gotten paid for my hits yet. As of last night, all of my hits have slowly been getting out of "pending payment status."
Haha, yeah, I actually started when mTurk just launched. Back then, the major requestors were CastingWords, VideoJug, and this other one whose name I can't remember, but it was a British company that had you marking up traffic photos with green and red paint. It didn't pay much, but it was really fun. The craziest hit I ever did was around $12. It was so crazy that I did a snapshot of it (can't find it now, although I still have a copy of the hit I submitted). The guy wanted me to write a lecture about a fake person he had made up! He was supposedly going to give the lecture some place as some kind of experiment. I asked him if he could send me a recording, but he never did. You would've faced a lot more frustration back then, I think, because of how different the turker workforce was. You see how today, the turking community has kept requestors on their toes now, what with stuff like TurkOpticon and forums like these where people can call them out for being scammers, unfair, or miserly? Well, years ago, the Turker community wasn't like that. There were a lot of bottom feeders who practically slobbered over every requestor, no matter how exploitative. So if you went onto a forum to complain about something wrong that a requestor had done, you were basically flamed by them. There was one requestor I had one issue with, who was clearly rejecting hits for no real reason (maybe to get out of paying them like so many unfair rejectors--I never figured out what the requestor was up to). I went to one of the turker forums (not this one; a really, really old one) and I got completely flamed by all these losers who were so "grateful" to get any kind of pittance that they acted as if me calling out this requestor was like a dog biting the hand that feeds them. I was so enraged/ disgusted that I basically walked away from mTurk. I was angry over the lack of support, for one, where I'd been wronged by an obvious cheater and everyone had dogged me. And two, with so many people like that who are like "How dare you attack a requester that pays 12 cents an hour and randomly rejects hits for no reason; you should lick their boots and worship the ground they walk on!" I knew that mTurk was doomed to be a site with nothing but requestors expecting people to work slave wages. But luckily, the opposite happened. For whatever reason, it seems as if over the years the turker "workforce" has become a lot smarter and self-respecting, with people who value their time, know what they are worth, and are a lot less willing to put up with being exploited. So there's more understanding and sympathy when a turker is wronged, and the community is more proactive in weeding out bad requestors. It's not like people are, "Shut up, moron. Read the directions next time and maybe you won't get rejected." Now people are, like, "Yeah, I hear ya. I got burned by that requestor, too. I gave him a well written, 1000 word article for $2, and he rejected it because I accidentally forgot to put a period at the end." So yeah, mturk in 2009 was both fun but a lot more infuriating. Apparently, when I left, this was when it was just started to get the "cheaters/ scammers/ TOS violators" problem. Because up until that point with the requestor I'd had an issue with, there were practically no incidents I can remember of obvious scamming. The requestors were very serious.
Sorry I disagree The wages are far worse than they used to be, the requesters have terrbile attitudes by and large and a great number of the turkers are still slobbering over penny hits so long as they can avoid a rejection-as if that's the main point instead of fair fees for hard work. Stick around a while. You'll see what I'm taking about. Turkopticon is useful but even if a review is in green you still have to read them because workers are giving ridiculously high ratings to requesters who pay $1 an hour or less, calling them "fair" and "generous." I made WAY more money in 2008 than I am now. It's a miracle to find a hit that pays even $2.40 an hour and it's because there's hundreds of thousands more workers giving their hard work away, not realizing how it hurts the industry as a whole but especially those of us who have to turk because we can't find anything else in this economy. We're being pimped like a crack ho' on payday. Believe it! I do know exactly what you're saying about the attitudes back then. I used to get in trouble all the time on forums, including this one for speaking up for the workers and berating scumbag requesters. It still happens from time to time in Turkopticon where you'll see a small minority take up for OUR rights and give HONEST, intelligent reviews and some bobo head will defend the requester who is paying him .27 cents an hour! It's insane...lol
Hi, Shego! :high5: I don't think that wages today are exceptionally better than they were years ago, but I think that the fact that there are a lot more "proactive" members than there were before at least opens up a greater possibility for better paying hits in the future whereas back in '09 it was probably next to nil. This is especially true if the economy picks up.
Hi deeriley, Even I started using Mturk again after 3 years or so. But all my HITs are in status "Approved - Pending Payment". After how many days it will reflect in balance?
When you started Turking 3-years ago, did you Turk for 10 days consistently? It doesn't sound like you did. To me, it sounds like your still in your probational period. If this is the case, after you Turk 10 consecutive days, you will be full time. On the 10th day, your hits will start going to "Paid Status".
Welcome back; I actually had a similar experience with a long hiatus. I actually started in 2010. Did 100 hits and forgot about it. At the time I wasn't willing to put in effort because I was just setting up my company(ies). I "really" started in February when I was linked to a survey by one of my friends. He said that it would really help his research if I completed it and I did. I found, talking to a bunch of requester, that what we do on Mturk is extremely valuable. I liked that feeling and the fact that I was helping while making--even if it's a limit wage--money. So I began turking again when I'm not doing my other work & hobbies.
I thought I read somewhere that if your account isn't active for 90 days than you need to re-endure the probational period.
Thanks for your replies. Its just 3 days back I started. Probably I will wait for 7 more days before contacting MTurk.