So, I did a hit for this requester (Red45) earlier in June and wrote a review about him on TO, but apparently, anybody who even gives a remotely nice review (he paid me - it took a few days, but it wasn't rejected) is pegged for being the requester himself. I got my review flagged because the guy is just drop-dead-convinced that I'm the requester named Ian! Just be careful if you do a review. This is hilariously unbelievable to me. (As previously stated, I've got a little boy and am currently pregnant with my second kiddo. Kinda hard to be a dude with a bun in the oven... :rolleyes I guess my e-mail address could look a little similar to the name "Ian" - my name in lowercase (lana) is a little close, but ... yeah. Whatever guy. Keep your flag up.
His TO page is probably the funniest one on MTurk, with all the arguing between him and pissed off workers hahahaha Never tried one of his hits or would i wish to
The hit I did was out of boredom -- a 6 minute audio, for $0.19. It actually wasn't that bad because the audio was really clear, and the medical aspect of it wasn't something that I couldn't grasp (with the aid of Google, of course). But then I got to pokin' around and actually reading reviews and saw that a TON of people were just frothing at the mouth to be mean. I'm sure they've got their reasons, but my experience wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I've done surveys that pay about the same and take about the same amount of time, and the wait time for approval is either longer or similar. ...but to think that by actually giving the guy a fair review, based on my own personal opinions, that I'd get flagged and be accused of being the requester? That gets on my nerves a little bit! Although I am full of extra crazy hormones and get mad at the drop of a hat... I just have to remember that it's only the internet... :rolleyes:
Don't take that personally, that one requester has a history of reviewing his own account with fake reviews to get people to do his tasks.. He's reviewed himself around 20 times i think lol so now anything with a green bar is seen as fake. People are mean to him as he uses Turkopticon to bait people who leave him reviews. He's a funny character
Yikes! Well, it was an honest review from just a regular ole' mturker! I think the only really negative review I've given was for Classify AdImages, both times I've been brave enough to try a hit, I got that ridiculous 'you answered wrong but we paid you anyway' message. Boo. I want to review honestly so other people have an idea what to expect, but everybody has their own personal experience. I didn't mind the length (though the pay for it was kinda crappy, I can make $0.13/hit with Imfuna for a minute's worth of audio) and it wasn't the worst hit I've done... What creeps me out are those offense picture hits, where you go through and select the adult content. I've seen some things... and the only thing that really stuck in my head, and bothered me BADLY, were the set of pictures taken of a little boy posing. Fully clothed, but the poses were suggestive enough to make it obvious what the shoot's purpose was. So, I don't do those hits anymore for my own mama sanity.
You know, on second thought, I probably won't be leaving any more reviews for anyone on TO, personally. The people who post there really must not have anything good to say about anyone! Trying to be nice and give people fair reviews apparently gives off the impression that I'm a bad person: "Reviewer has given reviews for other requesters, including Oscar Smith, that should tell you guys they do not value their time or have any self worth." Wow, thanks for the nice words there! But, it just reinforces that from what I've seen, the people on THIS forum are MUCH nicer. So, thank you for not telling me I have no self-worth just because I've done some HITs. All I'm trying to do is put some extra money in my bank to get my kiddo a new toy or new clothes once in a while.
Lana, the Self-Appointed TO Police have made reviewing downright ridiculous. I wrote reviews there since 2010, and I had nutters flagging my positive reviews, saying I must be a requester reviewing my own HITs. I was like, wow, what a diabolical, methodical requester I must be, to write fake reviews going back two years, just so that I could bump up my own TO rating. After going through a round of having a number of my positive reviews flagged, I just stopped writing them. If I ever run across someone who is rejecting unfairly, or if I find out a requester is a blocker or is using majority rules, then I'd write a review to warn other Turkers away. But other than that, forget it.
I dunno...you could be Arnold Schwarzenegger in Junior...but yeah, it's ridiculous that they'd be rude, even if this guy has reviewed himself before.
I was looking around last night for an alternative to TO because I saw some similar behavior. Cheese and rice, I don't know what Elaine did to them (maybe she kicked someone's kitten), but they have hidden *all* of the positive reviews for that requester: http://turkopticon.differenceengines.com/A2PX4F0TX63O4L. I noticed they started doing it to a couple of others as well. They're basically flagging TO into irrelevancy. Lovely. I'm always shocked when I see comments like that. People bash others for doing cheap HITs, but if you notice, they *never* offer an alternative.
I am a mod on TO. What do you suggest we do? Allow requesters who violate amazons TOS to have positive reviews? Or all that matters to you is that you get paid? We are trying to be consistent and apply the same rules to everyone.
I know the mods are smarter than that. There are only three moderators on TO. Anyone can flag a review, but it will not be hidden until a moderator flags it as well. If you feel you were unfairly flagged by a moderator, post the link please.
I never do a new requester until I've checked TO. Yes, it does have some problems, but in the end it is a big help. You can see a requester with a lot of bad reviews and see a good one in the middle, just ignore it. It's either a nutcase or the requester trying to up his score.
Just wanted to say I turned in a job for Red45 this week and was approved pretty fast. So, not all bad maybe? I didn't have TO at the time (noob, hadn't found this forum yet) so maybe I wouldn't have done it if I had!
Haha oh man, yeah, TO can be interesting. I write reviews, anyway, because some people really do go to the website to see what the reviews say, and I only give honest reviews based on my experience. I haven't been flagged, yet, but someone responded to one of my reviews from yesterday with: "this is a punk motherfuckin requester" Yeah, I wish I were in a position to be a requester, but I'm not :rolleyes: I was reviewing a new requester who had only 1 other review, and it sounded like the worker didn't follow instructions, but I couldn't tell for sure. Plus, he did reject one of my HITs (out of 50ish or 100ish, can't remember exactly - it was my fault, regardless). There is no way to flag comments on reviews, so I emailed the moderators (I don't think they do anything on account of someone just calling you a requester, but cursing is against the TOS).
I appreciate that you and the other moderators point out when requesters try to game their TO ratings. I also appreciate TO in general. I think it's a great way for turkers to avoid exploitation on mturk. However, I disagree with hiding ratings the way you have with requesters like Elaine. IMO, it's disingenuous. When you mouse over that requester's rating, it appears as though 14 people rated her(?) all 1's, but that isn't the case. You want it to appear that way. Instead of getting the average rating of 14 turkers, I'm getting ratings from one or two, the same one or two people every time you do that. I've reported TOS violators to Amazon, but they don't do anything. I have to assume they know about it. They have to know about SpeechInk, I work for them by the way, and they've been around mturk for a while. Perhaps Amazon has given some requesters the OK to violate the TOS on a case-by-case basis. I don't know. I readily admit to being new to mturk. I think you've been around mturk a lot longer than I have, so maybe you've already seen how this story turns out. I'll give you that. I just happen to disagree with what you're doing, no more, no less. Thanks for your work on TO and happy turking!
I just want to say thanks for all the hard work yall do for TO. I've used it since you started and would be lost without it. Keep up the good work. {CT}
Yep, still got people accusing me of being the requester, and this guy's logic is that I posted 3 reviews on the same day, so I absolutely must be Ian. Whatever. I've had enough of my review being trashed... e-mailed TO today, hopefully the problem will stop. I understand the intention to let others know who are bad requesters and who aren't, but harassing someone because they didn't have a downright NEGATIVE experience is terrible. And now that my other reviews have been brought up and used against me (as in, I have no self-worth for leaving a review for Oscar Smith, and that I must be someone else because I reviewed three others on the same day) it's really making me NOT want to post ANY reviews at all. They've just about ruined that site for me. I've gotten two flags on my review now, I'd really like it if a mod would at least post something to the effect of "this is NOT the requester" so they'd leave me be and stop accusing me of something entirely false.
Wow, Lana, just re-visited your thread for Red45 on TO. It really got out of hand. While I can understand the animosity towards Ian (he really is a low-life requester), I don't think the deterioration of comments about you and your character were appropriate. I found the toilet scrubbing comment particularly distasteful. Anyway, I hope TO cleans up the thread and offers some type of apology.
I received a response from my e-mail to TO, and unfortunately, I don't think a whole lot is going to be done. I guess I'll just let it slide (until I think about it again, and get pissed off, LOL) and let whoever they want flag my review. At least I know I'm not some guy named Ian. I think my crazy pregnancy hormones just made me react a little stronger to this than I normally would, but it is a PITA regardless. Now, if someone were to follow my around and flag all of my reviews, then I'd be ready to drive cross country to punch somebody in the face. However, all they can do is sit behind a screen and anonymously harass other people. That just shows how cowardly they are, to be honest. Big sad face to a few members of the human race.
One of the moderators responded to me and did what they could, within the requirements of the TOS (removed the foul language, left the gist of the reply to my review). Too bad you can't delete WTF comments!