MTF Posting Guidelines

Discussion in 'General' started by Tjololo, Aug 30, 2015.

  1. Tjololo

    Tjololo Pony
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    Hello mturkforum.com members! First off, thank you all so much for your contributions, without you the forum would not exist! Give yourselves a round of applause!

    Since its beginning around 6 years ago, this forum has grown by leaps and bounds. We've refined ourselves, and we've made turking a lot easier for everyone involved. We provide a centralized "core" of turkers, requesters, scripters, and comedians to hang out, entertain each other, and make money!

    In the spirit of encouraging people to share, contribute, and enjoy their time here at MTF, Cowfin has been working hard behind the scenes to help the mod team keep the unnecessary drama to a minimum. Recently, we've had a big push towards a "safe for work" workplace, and a welcoming community. We've had a lot more guidelines passed down the pipe in regards to bullying, arguments, and non-hit discussion. For the most part, the mod team has done a great job handling issues as they crop up, but it has been expressed to everyone that the rules are a bit vague.

    There's been accusations of “unbannable cliques,” as well as displeasure with moderation and “censorship” in general. We would like to apologize if anyone feels this way. It was not our intention to seem discriminatory, and we realize that so many changes in such a short time may be jarring and difficult to cope with. Something that was acceptable last week may not be acceptable this week, and vice versa. We understand that this is confusing for you, and we're hoping to change that.

    The purpose of this post is to help with guidelines and understanding of why things are the way they are, and to provide a resource to go to if you're wondering why your post got redacted, or whether a gif is acceptable. No, this is not a new set of rules. We still strongly believe that moderator discretion is key, and as always, Cowfin will be the "supreme court" for appeals. She has the final say on whether something is appropriate or not, but there's a lot that goes into it. So without further ado, here is MTF's forum posting guidelines! Please keep in mind, this post is here for your benefit. Ask questions! Ask for clarification! Give examples! We ask that, if you do post an example of something to ask if it's NSFW, please keep it inside a [NSFW]NSFW tag[/NSFW] (as is standard practice in all forums) for the sake of our mod team who work in corporate environments.
     
  2. Tjololo

    Tjololo Pony
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    General Rules
    1. Respect.
      • Respect the moderators, other users, and requesters. Harassment, bullying, and trolling are not permitted and will lead to infractions and bans. Any and all slurs are prohibited. Posting of any personal information, including that of requesters, even if it is visible or considered public information.
      • Respect the platform. This means no discussion of working while intoxicated in any form, no discussion of violating the mTurk TOS, and no “scamming” of requesters.
    2. No cheating/survey content
      • Survey content should never be posted. This includes any demographic information/similar qualifications, completion codes, attention checks or warning others, etc. In other words, if you can’t see it in the preview page, don’t post it!
      • Do not scripts that violate the mTurk TOS, such as those that complete the entire HIT for you. While scripts are excellent to speed things up and make turking “safer”, they should never replace you and fully automate your role as a worker. Anything that could be considered “cheating” is not permitted

    Innapropriate Posts
    As a general rule, anything that can be considered not safe for work, including any partial nudity. should be marked as NSFW. Although many of use work from home, a number of members work in corporate or family environments where these images can cause problems. NSFW images can be embedded, but only behind a NSFW tag. The usage for this is
    [​IMG]
    . If you do choose to embed an image behind a NSFW tag, BE SURE THE TAG WORKS! We are working on adding a quick-reply button to add NSFW tags, but it is not implemented yet. Be sure to double check and make sure you didn't leave out a bracket (eg
    [​IMG][/nsfw would not show up properly). Since we have enabled a dedicated NSFW tag, we will be a lot more strict when it comes to NSFW postings. When in doubt, add the tag. We will be harsh on posts that do not use a tag, and lenient on posts that do. that's not to say you can post whatever you want and get away with it, standard forum rules about bullying, racism, etc. still apply. However, we are a lot more understanding about a post that has been tagged NSFW than we are about a post that has not been.

    IF IN DOUBT, USE AN NSFW TAG

    Please note that gore, NSFL images, and hardcore porn are still not permitted.


    Bullying
    Bullying and harassment are not allowed. This includes slurs, personal attacks, and persistent, deliberate badgering. We understand that joking between users happens, but all sides must be okay with it. If you feel that someone is messing with you, PM them and discuss it with them, or if that fails, contact a moderator.

    That being said, do not try to skirt the rules and claim that you were “joking.” Any infractions for bullying will stand, even if the post was “a joke.” If you make enough “jokes” to receive a ban, you probably weren’t actually making jokes in the first place.

    We’re taking a firm approach to this, and will be enforcing it consistently. If you have a persona on the forum that involves bullying, even jokingly, we advise that you tone it down, because there will be consequences.
     
  3. Tjololo

    Tjololo Pony
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    Self-Moderation
    MTF mods try to be around as much as possible to help keep issues at a minimum. However, there are times when we're not around. Additionally, there are some times when an issue doesn't require moderator intervention. There are a lot of issues we receive reports about that do not require mod intervention, they require self-moderation. These issues are often focused on one user vs another user, or related to photos. These problems do not require mod intervention, because the tools to prevent them exist in the vBulletin interface, however a lot of people don't seem to know how to use them.

    Here is a screencast showing exactly how to turn off images. It's very quick (the screencast is 25 seconds to show the process). It can be toggled fairly easily. If a user is posting images you find distasteful, rather than reporting them over and over again, just disable images. Let the page pass, then re-enable it. Sometimes something that offends one person may not be offensive to others, even though it's within the posting guidelines described in this post. These aren't times when the moderators should start striking down photos left and right, banning users, and stirring up all kinds of issues, it's where you should, as a responsible adult, take responsibility for what you see and disable images until the issues have passed.

    Additionally, you should know how to ignore a user. To do that, you visit their profile by clicking the user's name and clicking "View Profile", then click the link indicated in blue here. There is also an ignore script here that will ignore their quotes as well as remove the "stubs". Keep in mind, if you install the script, there is no current way to remove a user from it except manually. You can clear them by first unblocking the user by going to their profile again and clicking "Remove from blocklist", then enter the following into your browser's URL bar on any mturkforum.com domain and hit "enter":

    javascript:localStorage.removeItem("plonk");

    Make sure to include the "javascript" in there as well. That will clear your stored list of blocked users and will remove the blocked user from the "hide all" list.

    Mod Discretion
    The mods at MTF were chosen by the team because they expressed a genuine desire to keep the forum "in line". What does that mean? It means that, regardless of what was going on in the chat, these were the people who were reporting inappropriate posts, attempting to bring conversation back to work, and attempting to defuse arguments.

    This does not mean that moderators are infallible. Moderators are people too, and are affected with such weaknesses such as "anger" "frustration" "depression", you know, emotions. When a moderator gets frustrated, he or she may make more radical decisions than would be made in a neutral emotional state.

    THAT BEING SAID, the moderators were chosen for a reason. They are capable, they are fair, and most importantly, they are the authority on the forum. This means that moderator decisions should NOT be debated in the daily threads. If someone has a problem with a moderator's decision, the proper method is to PM that moderator and CC Cowfin. This photo is an example of a good PM. The moderator in question (Tjololo) is in the Recipient box, with Cowfin cc'd. The title and contents are just an example. However, if this were a true moderation-in-question, we would ask you to answer the following questions:

    1. A link to the post (or, if no post available, a thread link and time) when the moderator overstepped their bounds.
    2. What the moderator did
    3. Who that action affected (specific users, or yourself)
    4. Why do you believe that the action was inappropriate (it was a misunderstanding, it was an accident, etc)

    When it comes to banning, note that we rarely issue permanent bans. Typically we will issue an infraction and/or a warning, and then proceed into temporary bans if necessary. HOWEVER, YOU CAN BE BANNED WITHOUT EVER RECEIVING A WARNING.

    Of course, if you are the banned user, you will be unable to ask these questions through PM. To solve this, we have created an email system for appeals. If you would like to discuss your ban, you can send an email documenting your point of view to admins@ns4t.net. If you would like to discuss your ban with a specific moderator, the email address is simply their username @ns4t.net. For example, to reach Tjololo, contact tjololo@ns4t.net.

    Ultimately, Cowfin is the final decider. If you would like to contact her directly, you can do so at cowfin@ns4t.net.
     
    #3 Tjololo, Aug 30, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 30, 2015
  4. Tjololo

    Tjololo Pony
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    So, as a quick rundown:
    1. Respect each other, respect the team, respect requesters, and respect the platform.
    2. Do not discuss survey content or violations of the TOS.
    3. Any and all NSFW content should be placed within NSFW tags. TEST YOUR TAGS BEFORE YOU POST
    4. Know that you can ignore other users and turn off images. YOU can moderate what you do and don’t see.
    5. Moderators have discretion to make decisions regarding the rules.
    6. If you have an issues with how something was handled, contact the staff directly through PM.
    7. If you feel you have been wrongly banned, send an email to admins@ns4t.net. Or, to reach a moderator/admin directly, send an email to username@ns4t.net. For example, to reach Tjololo, you would email Tjololo@ns4t.net

    I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a big chunk of information to process. We welcome feedback on this post and the subsequent information. Please feel free to contact us at our ns4t.net addresses. You can use an anonymous mail system if you desire, just google for "anonymous email".

    Also, as a note, the mod team will not release anyone's email address, real name, or any identifying information to the public or anyone else, ever. Additionally, unless otherwise specified, mod emails and discussions are considered highly confidential by the whole mod team. This means that if you want to tell us anything, rest assured that your identifying information will NEVER be released. This goes for negative (complaints about a user) and positive (praise about a user).
     
    SUWAN LECHOWICZ likes this.
  5. Tjololo

    Tjololo Pony
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    Daily Threads:

    Anybody can make the daily HIT threads, but we have a few requests to keep things organized.


    • To reduce duplicate threads, let people know a few minutes in advance by making a quick post in the current thread.
    • Please wait to make your thread until Midnight PST/3 AM EST. This is when the mTurk clock rolls over to a new day and HIT limits reset.
    • If another thread has been made, please don't make a new one.

    If multiple threads are made, the first thread linked in the old one should be used. But no worries! A moderator will delete the extra thread(s) the next day.

    In the event that nobody has claimed a day/no new thread has been made, TJBot will automatically create a new thread at 12:08 PST. This will be considered the "official" thread for the day.
     
    #5 Tjololo, Aug 30, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: May 25, 2016
  6. Tjololo

    Tjololo Pony
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    Reserved 2

    Edit: Please keep responses in this thread on topic and either questions or criticism (IE no "Thanks" or "I agree"). We may delete posts to keep the thread as relevant as possible.
     
    #6 Tjololo, Aug 30, 2015
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 30, 2015
  7. gotozeus

    gotozeus New Member

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    Hello, I am new here and this appears to me to be the appropriate place to post this remark/question.

    So to begin with one can read here that the following activity is prohibited:
    "Disrupting, manipulating, or impairing the operation of the MTurk website (e.g., don’t try to "game" search results for HITs, or knowingly publish HITs that Workers will be required to return after accepting them)"

    So to explain my understanding of this, as a requester I am not allowed to post a HIT that needs to be returned by the workers after they have accepted it.
    For example, I should not say "Short FUN survey. Easy!" and then proceed to have 1 minute questionare that screens out everyone that is not a 19-21 y.o. homosexual black latino muslim because that will waste the time of the vast majority of mturkers.
    I could for example have a questionare for 1 cent, that screens people but rejects none, and be perfectly in agreement with Amazon's ToS.

    So in this particular case it seems to me that requesters who do that (and there are plenty of those lately) are taking advantage of a flawed system that allows them to use screening even though it is against policy and furthermore reduce the income of people that make MUCH less than minimum wage per hour.
    I do not really understand then, why such requesters and their HITS are not fair game.
    Why shouldn't I post that HIT GS676GFGG7676 looks for black women 18-24 who reside in queens new york and have been shopping online on Ralf Lauren using android HTC M10s? Why shouldn't we make it so that every single worker just so happens to be a member of that demographic?

    On one hand this is not exactly something that feels right, but on the other hand, ignoring the problem allows these bad requesters to ruin worker stats, waster worker's time and profit by violating Amazon's ToS because they feel they cannot pay 1 cent for screening. Mturkers silence on this just encourages this.

    Therefore my question to you guys is:
    Why should we refrain from punishing the requester by posting here what the requirements actually are (easy to figure out by trying stuff while being in incognito mode).
     

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