Unsurprisingly, a Requester did something unfair and exposed their ignorance of mTurk's entire scam/business model. Because I'm getting sick of getting upset and whinging over this, I'm going to write it in play form. Kevin Dodds: I'd like to get people to do my work for me. I'm going to pay them twelve whole cents to do it! mTurk: Sure! We have this special category called "Masters". It's not based on any Worker stats or accuracy, but it DOES mean that whoever does your HITs is a Master at Mastery, so make sure to select "Masters" so that only Masters can master your masterful work of mastering mastery! Kevin Dodds: Actually, I've decided against it. But I'm still going to put "Masters" in the title of my HITs, because I like the way it looks. mTurk: Oh. Kevin Dodds: I am very happy paying twelve whole cents to make sure that work is done to the best of my vacillating moods! Also, if I'm paying someone to do this work, then I know when they're wrong and when they're right, even if they don't! I learned that from the Dolores Labs School of CrowdFlowering CrowdTaskasshattery! mTurk: Yes, they are such good Requesters that we'd give them a Master Requester Qualification, if we were clever enough to rate Requesters in a fair and balanced way! Kevin Dodds: Just a question, should I bother setting up Qualification Tests instead, to weed out bad work? mTurk: Nah Kevin Dodds: OK. I could just block them instead. Does that have any negative effect on them? mTurk: Lol no UPDATE: INT. EMAIL INBOX - EVENING Kevin Dodds: Oops. It turned out that something was wrong with my data-collecting machine. You actually had an over 90% accuracy level, so I unblocked you. I shall look into setting up Qualifications on subsequent HITs. I am not a bad person. Me: Indeed not. You seem...adequate.
But, I hope everyone reads this and avoids him like the plague, so I can go back to doing 500 a batch like I did before his name hit the forums.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!! That is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I think you missed your calling--you should be a comedian. How do you know if you're blocked or not? I did one of his HITS earlier; walked away for about 15 minutes and came back, ready to settle in for some serious turking and the hits were gone! Does that mean he blocked me? Or did he take them down for repairs?
Never received one, but from what I can tell if you are blocked you get an email letting you know, so if you didn't get an email saying so then the HIT's were probably just gone. They go a little slower than others though...1,000 lasts around 30-60 minutes.
The batches from today were kind of weird though, and I am assuming that might have had something to do with the OP getting blocked. Hard to explain...I got around 300 of his today, and they just seemed...off. Different than normal, like the test questions were strange...I was kind of hesitant every time I saw one of the test questions, but I didn't get blocked...yet.
I think they do a soft block based on the quality of work ensuring that bad performers do not get to do more work. Did anyone get a hard block here? @wetcake, Loved it the way you have put it together You got some good creative skills here. @turkimaniac, How do you figure out which is a test question - (I haven't worked on his of late).
alian...just what shows up more than once is most likely a test question. Of course you can only guess but when you see the same place in Chicopee 8 times it is most likely a test question. It seems like he adds some or changes them in each batch, but after you do 100 or so you should already have an idea of which they are.
I seem to be the only person who has never gotten a bonus from him, which kind of sucks. I don't think I'm doing bad work, and apparently he does block if your score drops. I'm probably right about the same as blaze with 1000 or so earned from him, but no bonuses