Upcoming changes to 11223344 HITs

Discussion in '11223344' started by mturkconsultant, Apr 16, 2013.

  1. mturkconsultant

    mturkconsultant Verified Requester / HIT Consultant

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    Hello all,

    I know I haven't written about 11223344 HITs in a while (and I know there haven't been many up), but that's because I've been busy working on the next version. This involved talking to the company that posts the current ones and a lot of backend changes, but some worker-facing (that's you!) changes are going to be making their way into the HITs in the coming weeks.

    First, the bad news. The "Select a category" HIT that a lot of you love is changing. In its current state, it is not very useful for us, yet it costs much more for us then the other HITs. This is made worse by the mandatory 0.005¢ fee imposed by Mechanical Turk, making our fee for each select HIT 35% as opposed to the typical fee of 10%/HIT.

    Second, since this HIT is so well paying and popular ( :D ) our server takes quite the hit every time it goes up, which slooows everything down.

    Not only that, in my analysis it pays up to two to three times better than our other tasks. That's not really fair to workers of the other tasks, especially since those other tasks are ones we actually use. The category step is actually just to make it simpler for workers to find HITs they like to work on (and to generate some pretty pie graphs on our side :lol:).

    As such, select HITs are going to begin to be combined. In addition, the pay is being lowered. This means that three select HITs will be in one HIT for 4¢. This brings it in line with our naming HIT and pricing HIT pay. I believe that this lowering is justified by the fact that the combined HITs do not have as long of page loads as there are three items on one page.

    We are not just going to pocket the cost savings. Instead, we will be distributing it among the other tasks. I don't have exact figures yet, but I will post them when I do.

    I hope you will not be too upset that this change is being made, but it will not be reversed. I hope you'll continue working for us, and maybe try out some of our other more challenging (and rewarding) tasks. :)

    Next, the amount of work. I know it has not been adequate as of late, and I apologize. We expect it to rise 10x the current rate with the signing on of a few large contents companies. It will mostly be soft goods, but we will have other types of HITs as well as always.

    Because of this change, I am going to be announcing a "trial worker" program when this volume increase happens to add new workers when I have decided all the details. This will be sort of like a qualification test, but it will be easier for me to keep track of (some recently added workers know what I'm talking about :) ).

    And finally, I have some new information in the HITs that the app user and insured can enter to make it easier to find prices and names. In the new version, you can see the room that the content was in, which might make it easier to tell the difference between a toilet brush (Bathroom) and a hair brush (Bedroom), among other things.

    The pricing HIT also will now give the insured the ability to login online and enter how much they paid for an item and when, so you can get a better idea as to what to replace it with.

    I want to thank all of you for the work that you have done for us, and I hope that as we grow we can keep getting the same great results!

    frb
     
  2. bobbie01

    bobbie01 User

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    Thanks for the head's up! I'll look forward to seeing the new changes and how they will affect us. If we already have your qualification will be have to go through the qual stage again?
     
  3. mturkconsultant

    mturkconsultant Verified Requester / HIT Consultant

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    Nope, should have mentioned that. Everyone who has it and who has not lost it will retain it :)
     
  4. tcgirl

    tcgirl User

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    The changes (select a category) most likely won't make a difference to me. It may even benefit me. I have high speed internet but I also have a high latency. Therefor the time between loading hits is slow, but the hits themselves load pretty fast. The rest of the changes sound great! My mom and I are looking forward to seeing more of your HITs.
     
  5. tcgirl

    tcgirl User

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    One of the things I've noticed with the "accessory" portion of the site is that they are actually sold as part of the item. For example there were shelves that were in a TV stand that were shown as accessories then again I saw the shelves by themselves and was asked to label them separately. Just now there was a Ceiling fan Motor that had the remote and what looked like mounting hardware shown separately as accessories. If one person labels the Ceiling fan motor (or the TV stand) but then later only sees the mounting accessories and remote (or shelves) by themselves they may not know what it is. Also I don't know how this will impact the pricing area. Since these items are usually purchased as a unit.

    Just an observation.
     
  6. vordai

    vordai User

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    Hey mturkconsultant,

    Thanks for all the HITs, as always.

    If you're still taking suggestions, would it be possible to get size measurements? I am doing the General Contents right now, and ran into things like picture frames and containers. I gave prices for 5x7" frames, but I think it would be great if the insured had the option to input sizes/measurements. I think that would help a lot.

    Thanks!
     
  7. klayslurey

    klayslurey User

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    Not sure if it was mentioned before in another thread, but what would you like us to put if it is a medical prescription?
     

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