Hmmm, interesting thread. I actually thought this was about the survey on complaining and who you complain to, hahaha, OOPS!!!
Let me clarify that this thread was originally meant to be informational, not a debate. However, since it's turned into one, here is my thesis, the first principle from which I am arguing: I should be able to do work on MTurk and as long as I do the work conscientiously and my work is reasonably correct, I should be able to trust that I will be paid for it. Now, I know this is the real world and you can't just walk down the street blindly trusting everyone you meet. There are bad people out there that will do you harm deliberately, because that is what evil people do. There are ignorant and foolish people who will do you harm unintentionally, because that is the nature of the ignorant and foolish. However, trust is what is at the core of my argument. Let me clarify further. If I order a product from Amazon, I can trust that it will be what I ordered, even if it's from an Amazon associate. If I order a copy of "War and Peace", I'm not going to get a copy of high school student's book report on "Catch 22". If I was sent a high school student's book report on "Catch 22", I have recourse. I can complain to Amazon about it, and I can reasonably trust that eventually, even though it might include some frustration, I would wind up with a copy of "War and Peace". Amazon would work to make sure I was happy. This is why Amazon is worth a little over $100 billion. Another example: if I go to my local Chinese restaurant and order the beef lo mein and a side order of pork fried rice, I can trust that the meat in my food will be that of Bos primigenius and Sus scrofa, not of Canis lupus and Felis domesticus, racist jokes aside. If I was served Fido and Puddin' Kitty, I would again have recourse. I could complain and the cops or the health department or somebody would come and shut the restaurant down pretty quickly. So, back to trust. I think that Amazon has not been sufficiently scrupulous and diligent in making sure that MTurk is someplace that workers and requesters can trust each other (as several of the other posters in this thread have vigorously made clear). I am thinking that perhaps they need a larger stick than I wield to motivate them into cleaning up MTurk and making it someplace that people can trust, which in the end is good for everyone. This is why I've chosen this particular windmill to tilt at today, and why I sent the E-mail I did. If you disagree with me that MTurk should be a place you can trust as a requester or a worker, I invite your commentary.
Don't forget that on Amazon Mechanical Turk, we are the sellers. We are selling our labor, and the requesters are the buyers. Scam requesters are buying with the equivalent of counterfeit money. Outside of the internet, the Secret Service shows up to deal with that! (seriously...the SS. My brother used to deliver pizzas and got a counterfeit $20 once and was interviewed by the SS, of all agencies,)
I apologize for my initial post here. I blew up at you and I shouldn't have. The thread had already taken on a life of it's own and I got caught up. I could've easily said the same things and been just as effective with a calmer tone.
I am on the side of those who argue that actions can be effective and I will use Craigslist to serve as support for my argument. There are of course many other precedents like cigarette smoking, driving under the influence and environmental laws where activists played a leading role in changing things. Craigslist as many of you know no longer has an "Erotic" or "Adult" services category and now try to police scammers who disguise their actions by advertising in other sections. They only took action after governmental pressure. It wasn't the actions of just the Attorney General in California, it was the concerted effort of many states' AGs. The AGs were under political and public pressure to do something about unlawful activities (human trafficing, child prostistuition) being faciliated by Craigslist. Despite years of arguing Freedom of Speech and only being an intermediary, Craigslist finally gave in. Another similar situation I can think of is the child labour practises of American companies coming under scruntiny. So from what we learned in this instance, the approach so be to write to any politician and government official in any state and try to exert pressure. I should hope that Amazon cares about their brand image enough to act if the public outrage is sufficient. But I suspect their most likely reaction would be to get rid of Mechanical Turk and be done with it.
I'm with bootyb on this one! If you don't like it, get another "job" - turking is never going to pay my mortgage nor would I want it to so if something bothers me just MOVE ON!!! I'm pretty sure some brutally hard workers have it way worse then we do...
Oh, and look. This criminal happens to be the #1 requestor for Amazon at the moment. http://mturk-tracker.com/top_requesters/0/
The SS was originally created to help combat counterfeiters , not to protect the President That's still one of their primary objectives. We had a guy here in my little town making his own $5 and $10 bills and this place was crawling with the SS until they figured out who it was. (1865, The Secret Service Division was created on July 5, 1865 in Washington, D.C., to suppress counterfeit currency)
I seen it on the History Channel one night and was a bit confused because I honestly thought that they were created to protect the POTUS, but I guess in 1865 counterfeit money was a huge problem.
See here is where it get's tricky also, what about if you are transcribing the work, from say a receipt, and you have 100 items transcribed, and they reject you over 1 mistyped number. You could have spent 20 minutes on that job. What happens in the real world is that hey you get paid no matter what you put into the job. We get paid by the piece and if you type one thing wrong you are rejected and don't get paid for jack squat.
What happens in the "real world" is if you don't like it, go find a new job.....seriously this is $0.10 - or less we are talking about here...go find another requester. I am sadly shocked by the people that are so astonished by amazon's behavior; they owe us nothing, this is a way for people to make a few bucks, take it or leave it.
Unless they discard the correct portions (yeah sure) of your work, they are guilty of intellectual property theft. Your work belongs to you until you release to someone else. Part of the agreement we accept is to be paid for work performed and refusing to pay negates the agreement.
Actually, you can sue someone who doesn't pay you. But like Melissa mentioned, though, the barrier here is primarily the small amounts of money making such actions cost-prohibitive.
UM-Maybe to you- That is your opinion. Some people do make a living here or this is all they have- And yes people do need to pay you for the work they do- Don't turn everything ugly again- That is your opinion because that is how you feel- That is fine if you don't care about Mturk- But others do care about how they are treated and also how other people are treated too- You can make a decent wage on here- No matter what when it is owed to you- It is due you. Period. Maybe you are fine with getting things stolen from you- Sounds like it- But plenty of us are not. Don't push your opinion on others when you don't care. That is nice you don't but most of us are not going to leave a job when we get treated bad- That is not how to have good credit and keep a roof over your head- You have to be responsible- And it is OK if people don't like not being paid for work they put their time and effort into. I am sadly shocked by how disrespectful you are being to everyone else's opinion and not taking anyone else into consideration and only considering yourself and how you view things. Good for you if you don't like getting paid- If someone wants to report fraud they can- And frankly lots of people should so Amazon can turn around and stop letting known scam artists post whatever they like and never pay much if anything for it. Being nasty to others who simply care about changing things for the better is not something to be proud of. The real world? Yeah people in the real world have to be accountable for their actions. And it is OK to report such through the proper channels. Don't beat people down just because it's something you choose to ignore and not care about- I am sure you wouldn't work all day for a dollar either- but people in other countries live on that- Just because you don't consider it valid or worthwhile doesn't mean it isn't. Respect others.
Truth be told I don't have the problems you do. My rejections are at .05% on 10k hits plus, but naturally I have gotten burned on a few and it has pissed me off, but seriously to go to this level of writing to DOL just seems a little over the top. I'm not trying to be disrespectful here, I make a happy $250-$300 a month off the turk, but at the same time I don't bank my livelihood on rogue requesters. If you are depending on Mturk money then be more selective - I think this whole thing started on some crowdsource hit - I know people like them but I saw a few threads early on in my mturk days, looked at some of their hits, and blocked them immediately. Am I losing potential money, yes probably, but do I have this frustration of writing to the gov, no. As for the credit business and the whole "we dont leave jobs" do I really need to address this....my credit score is in the top 10%, I have made enough in my short time to be happy..I think the difference is I don't think anyone OWES ME anything....somewhere along the way people are projecting a sense of entitlement of the turk...should they offer us medical benefits next...if so, I'll turk my face off! I'm so far from a nasty person, let's just be realistic here folks...we aren't getting a 401k with matching benefits tomorrow...we are making some cash....