Christopher Malon

chubblemunch, thanks for taking the initiative in contacting him and letting him know. A lot of requesters are clueless to mTurks rules/stas and how it can affect us. It's nice to see that some requesters actually care and will find a way to work with us or change their system so it doesn't burn us. Thanks for contacting him.

 

If you go to the requester forum on mturk, there are actually Amazon representatives telling requesters to use the blocking system. I saw a thread where a requester asked how he could make a survey and have it so it so it couldn't be retaken by the same individual more than once. The first reply was from an Amazon employee that said to block them, and continued to explain how many requesters just block workers when they don't want work from them anymore as it doesn't effect their account. About 5 posts down another requester put a message that said to just make a qualification for the survey.

Either A. Amazon employees are uninformed themselves or B. It is a myth about the three blocks and your out.

Not saying it is B, and it very well could be A, but is there any actual cases of people getting the boot after three blocks, or has it always just been an assumption?

 

ive read through alot of those post and it seems if they block you in order to not take a survey again it doesnt go against you. it only goes against you if they block you because of crappy work. i also read that after 3 months a block is not held against you.
A amazon employee also said there is no difference between a soft block and hard block.

I tend to believe what the amazon employees say other then the 100 different theories you'll read in the forums, but you never know.

Really if your not getting blocked for crappy work you probably have nothing to worry about

 

Excellent point. I have been working for three requesters for about two months that a BUNCH of people complained about getting blocked by by...and never got blocked. Just because people are complaining about mass rejections or blocks doesn't always mean the requester is at fault. Basically, just because someone complains about blocks or rejections doesn't mean they didn't do bad work, it just means they are complaining. I get the feeling that a large chunk of complaints come from people that are doing bad work in the first place, or not doing it the way the requester wanted.

 

There have been people on the forum who have had their account suspended because of three blocks. Amazon's official block policy is confusing because they encourage requesters to block workers. My understanding of it is there are soft blocks, which are temporary, and there are hard blocks which are more permanent. How a hard block affects your account depends on the comment the requester leaves when blocking the account. This is directly from amazon on the requester forums.

"Looking at your use case you should be blocking workers in this example.
You are free to block the workers to prevent duplicates, this one of the intended uses of the block function.

When blocking a worker you are asked to supply a reason for the block. Either in the Requester User Interface or using the CLT/API tools.

If you put something like "prevent duplicates" then the Mechanical Turk team will disregard this block when considering the quality of a worker.

For more information about blocking workers using the RUI look here:
http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSMechTurk/latest/RequesterUI/BlockingaWorker.html

For additional help on this topic please send us an email through the contact us form here:
https://requester.mturk.com/contactus

Thank you for participating in Mechanical Turk.

For immediate answers to common questions please consult our Requester Help Page:
https://requester.mturk.com/help

Edited by: IsaacM@AWS on Feb 15, 2012 1:09 PM "

 

Thats basically my theory also. I only use T.O. as a basic guidline for this exact reason. if two people out of 10 say they got rejected and the hit pays decent ill have no problem jumping in

 

This post probably sums it up the best.

"Responding to therealwild, jluchkiw, and JMucktuker.

After this reply any additional support will need to come via the customer service email.

If you have concerns about blocks please send us an email, and I or another of our customer service team will be happy to review the blocks on your account and provide you with a record of them.

To therealwild: there is not a functional difference between what you call a "hard" or "soft" block. Therefore blocks put in place to "prevent duplicates" would be reported to the worker via the email system. Some workers literally have dozens of blocks on their accounts for this use case and it does no harm to them as a worker on Mechanical Turk.

To jluchkiw:The block applied by "Gary H" does nothing to put your account in risk of suspension. There are no negative connotations for Workers when Requesters use blocks to prevent duplicates. We recommend this to Requesters on a regular basis.

To JMucktuker: As cited above when you get the email notifying you the Requester has blocked your account it usually contains a reason for the block if one is entered by a Requester. We ignore blocks without any specific cause for purposes of worker quality.
Therefore it cannot lead to account suspension for workers. This is why we freely recommend Requesters use blocks as a way to limit their worker population because it has no negative effect for the workers account.

Please note we do have a thorough process of review and appeal for Workers who's accounts were suspended for Requester Complaint. If you are concerned about the blocks on your account please contact us via the web form and we will be happy to review them for you.

Thank you for participating in Mechanical Turk."

 

If you want to read for yourselves, you can go to the AWS Developers Forum for AMT and search the forum for “blocks” - you do not have to be a developer to read the forum.

This here direct link to the search results might work for you.

Most of the forum is dry, technical Q & A, so don’t expect any juicy dirt or such.

 

Frankly I don't understand why amazon has any say whatsoever as to whether our account is suspended or not since they are just a "job board" for "contractors" to find work. Their keen interest in how we conduct our own business (which you are because you're self-employed) rather makes amazon a temp agency, instead of a job board and therefore not exempt from deducting taxes and paying into them for each one of us. At least that's the way the IRS views it.

 

It's in Amazon's best interest to keep a higher ratio of quality to poor workers so they can attract more members to sign up for AWS, since 100% of the revenue comes from their commission. AWS users can be viewed as subscribers who expect quality content and will migrate to competing services if Amazon doesn't deliver a superior experience, such as a high-quality pool of workers. Amazon's main priority is to serve requesters and sell them on a premium experience, at the expense of worker accounts.

 

It's sort of like an agency issuing licenses and regulations.

 

I understand why amazon does it. But really, the definition of a contractor is someone who has creative control and a say in how much he gets paid. He is also responsible for reporting his own income. He is self-employed. Amazon wants to eat their cake and have it too. They claim we're contractors so they don't have to pay taxes on us; but they allow the requesters to dictate to the most minute detail how, when and how much. Amazon claims they need our SS numbers because they have to report to the IRS; but they never send us a 1099. Amazon and the requesters have total control. According to the IRS that makes us employees. If we could make a decent living it wouldn't be so irksome. It's frustrating to me that we get paid bupkiss, have absolutely no control over our work, can be booted out at the discretion of sleazy requesters and amazon but they want to enjoy the freedom of not paying into our social security etc. by calling us "contractors." FedXgot busted BIG TIME for pulling the same crap.