Blocked by KJ Ross

Discussion in 'KJ Ross' started by roddma, Nov 5, 2012.

  1. roddma

    roddma Member

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    Be leary of KJ Ross. I have done many hits for them with no problem until today. They rejected two rewrites and blocked me. If I get another block, my account will be banned. I am almost afraid to do any more writing hits. I wish there was something we could do about these kinds of requestors. I mean the ones that approve a batch of hits and the start rejecting for no reason. I sent KJ Ross a PM but I doubt if anything will happen.
     
    #1 roddma, Nov 5, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 5, 2012
  2. mischa

    mischa User

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    I stopped doing these rewrites when I got a single rejection (after working on numerous KJ Ross rewrites since they first appeared) with a warning about being blocked. Originally, this requester posted short sentences asking for 3 different rewrites - I far preferred that format and only got praise for my efforts.

    Why threaten a block when the requester could simply remove the qualification, which required a test, if I remember? And really, why even reject a writer's work for a rare 'mistake' (of course you have no way of knowing what 'mistake' you made)... No doubt, this policy will drive away any workers concerned about their longevity as MTurkers.
     
  3. boardwalkumpire

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    I submitted exactly one rewrite HIT to KJ Ross and got rejected (my first out of over 1000 HITs) and a
    "Your rewrite is not unique enough from the original source material. Please make sure to rewrite the paragraph in your own words, without borrowing phrases from the original material. Further submissions that are lacking in originality will lead to you being blocked." warning.

    About an hour later I received an email saying that my account was blocked from KJ Ross HITs. I wasn't going to attempt more of theirs, but really? That seems a bit excessive.
     
    #3 boardwalkumpire, Nov 6, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 6, 2012
  4. roddma

    roddma Member

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    I got the same warning but I submitted two hits already which lead to the block. I got an account warning today, too which I expected since it is my second. Amazon does nothing to remove scrupulous requesters.
     
  5. Samanthafoxx

    Samanthafoxx New Member

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    they have rejected me but never blocked me

    If EVERYONE is blocking you, there is probably a reason. Afterall, you are the only common denominator in the equation. IJS
     
  6. Samanthafoxx

    Samanthafoxx New Member

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    I emailed them and they told me exactly what I had done wrong to get rejected. I haven't been rejected since. My main problem is I get burnt out. I've learned when that happens, I shouldn't be trying to write or rewrite until I'm back fresh.
     
    #6 Samanthafoxx, Nov 6, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2012
  7. mischa

    mischa User

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    not sure why you're accusing me of lying... by no way of knowing, I mean if I submitted 20 rewrites in a single session and 1 provoked a generic rejection message, I have no way of knowing which rewrite contained an error...

    in fact, I have had email contact with this requester in the past and I guess I could have pursued it, but it's really not worth the risk for 45 cents when there are such generous writing offers elsewhere on MTurk
     
  8. kjross

    kjross Active Member

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    Hi,

    We don't reject for "no reason". We reject or reject and block only when the quality of the work is not high enough to be used in any way. We also track EVERYTHING, so if you get rejected and/or blocked, we can tell you why. There are days that we have 50+ rejections and there are other days when we have none. I go out of my way to make doing our hits a very fair experience. I employ a full-time staff and I also have a dedicated person doing customer service for AMT complaints/issues.

    I am open to discussing the removal of your block, mainly because, I was not aware (and have not verified) that accounts get banned if they are blocked a certain number of times. If this is something that you are interested in, you can reply here or send me a message through the turk.

    KJ
     
    #8 kjross, Nov 7, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2012
  9. kjross

    kjross Active Member

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    Hi Mischa,

    You are correct in stating that we previously were posting short sentences and asking for 3 different rewrites. We stopped submitting this type of job because the result that it was producing was not favorable for our clients. We now only submit paragraph rewrites because that is what is working for us in the marketplace right now.

    As to your questions, you raise some good points, and I would like to answer them. I feel that the disconnect between the workers and the requesters is one of the biggest issues with using the AMT.

    Why threaten a block when the requester could simply remove the qualification, which required a test, if I remember? - we no longer use qualification tests, after using them for quite some time, we found that they had a negative impact on the amount of workers that were accepting our hits.

    Why even reject a writer's work for a rare 'mistake' - We don't reject for small mistakes. If the worker's submission can be used in ANY way, our staff is instructed to make any necessary cosmetic changes and accept the submission. This is a double edged sword though, because it encourages lower quality workers to continue to work on our hits, which in turn causes our editor to spend much more time essentially doing the work herself since she is fixing EVERY hit. The bottom line here is try hard to accept most submissions, but we aren't going to pay (when you accept a hit, you are agreeing to pay the worker) someone for work that was incorrect or of poor quality.

    No doubt, this policy will drive away any workers concerned about their longevity as MTurkers. - I agree with you, but I also feel that some of the workers that are being driven away were not a great fit for our hits. My staff spends a lot of time revising and rejecting submissions from workers who are focusing on quantity over quality. These are often the same workers that are not taking the time to actually submit a quality rewrite, which generally takes less than 15 minutes. So yes, you are correct, we are driving away some of the good workers in our attempts to get rid of the bad workers. At the present time, I don't really know what else to do and am actively looking for solutions.

    My only options right now are to engage the workers (which is what I am doing now) so that I can see what adjustments can be made to improve our business processes and also increase the retention rate of the good workers.

    KJ
     
  10. kjross

    kjross Active Member

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    I don't think there is anything wrong with blocking workers. It is a tool that is given to requesters to prevent specific workers from working on their hits. Simply put, it saves a LOT of time, and most high volume requesters do it as it is basically a necessity when you are trying to get lots of work done.

    Again, this is done in an attempt to save time. I can not afford to have my staff spend so much time editing or rejecting your submissions, so they have been trained to block workers when they don't meet the quality standards that we are looking for. I stated in a previous post that I was not aware that this was detrimental to the workers account and I am now considering removing those blocks.
     
  11. mischa

    mischa User

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    Thanks for taking time to respond on this forum (KJ Ross). You have answered all my points in a reasonable manner. Working for MTurk often seems fraught with uncertainty because we typically perform this work in a vacuum (with scant communication from requesters and virtually none from Amazon). Personally, I can't afford to jeopardize my ability to work if any requester has a policy of blocking instead of rejecting or removing qualifications (unless, of course, the work submitted is execrable!)

    In fact, I love working for strict requesters who institute tough qualification tests and hold workers to high standards. Under those conditions, there is ample work for conscientious workers. I'll continue seeking out that kind of work, and I wish you luck because without requesters, there is no MTurk.
     
  12. naturegirl

    naturegirl User

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    Thanks for coming, KJ Ross. I did your HITs most weekdays for a few weeks this fall and then wandered away, having found better-paying options but also feeling a bit unappreciated and thus unmotivated to work for you, honestly. Based on the feedback I received from you routinely, I assume I'm one of the workers you'd have wanted to keep. So I have some comments.

    First, you mention that you feel a rewrite should take no more than 15 minutes. I only did your HITs because I could do them in 4 minutes or so. That made your pay at the time (45 cents per HIT; don't know if it's that now because as I said, I haven't done any in some time) acceptable, based on my standards then. However, if your HITs take people 15 minutes each to complete, that's 3 cents per minute worked, and not acceptable pay by most well-versed forum members' standards.

    Second, even though you may have a full-time staff, I certainly felt that the process was very canned. I only ever got appreciative feedback, but it was the exact same message every time. The amount of information packed into it also contributed to it feeling very impersonal and having the reverse effect: getting what amounts to a welcome note each time good work is done is rather a turnoff, like the requester has made no effort to even check whether you've done work for them before. So continuing to get that same message eventually made me feel less interested, not more.

    Third, I once wrote to suggest that although the note might be nice (at first), some bonus structure would really be far more motivating. I got no response whatsoever, which suggests to me that your staff may be focusing their energy on the workers you don't want, and that's not helping you keep the ones you might prefer. Speaking of pay structure, reading what you wrote here, I might suggest that if you feel there is a gap between the workers who do and don't do good work, perhaps start issuing a qualification to the ones whose work you like. Maybe even have your typical work pay a bit less, and then issue the qualification to those who do well, opening up batches to those folks that you design to pay a bit more. Money talks on MTurk. It's not everything (at least it isn't for me), but it's a lot.

    So although I found more profitable work, I didn't walk away from your batches feeling like, "gosh, what a nice requester. If I ever have nothing to do, I'll do some more." I do feel that way about others I used to do work for. The canned feel and the total lack of response to my friendly suggestion both made me feel rather taken for granted and removed my interest. I'm not bitter, just...there's no sense of pleasant nostalgia. ;) I think you'd want at least that if you want to keep good workers coming back.

    Hope that helps you!
     
  13. kjross

    kjross Active Member

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    Thank you for the comments, they are greatly appreciated. Please find my responses below.

    If your HITs take people 15 minutes each to complete, that's 3 cents per minute worked, and not acceptable pay by most well-versed forum members' standards. - When you submit HITs, you have to specify a time limit for them to expire if they aren't completed. Therefore, we set the HIT expiration to 20-25 minutes because we realize that people often take breaks, tend to their kids, answer the door, make phones calls, and other things. The duration does not reflect how long I think it should take, it merely allows for people to step away from their keyboard without the HIT expiring.

    For the record, I have had our HITs tested extensively and the average amount of time to rewrite one of our paragraphs is approximately 3 minutes. This means that our HITs are based on a pay structure of US $9 per hour.

    Even though you may have a full-time staff, I certainly felt that the process was very canned. - You are correct, we do use canned responses. At the time of implementation, I felt that this was the best usage of time for our staff and that it still allowed us to send messages to the people that we needed to communicate with. 99.99% of the time, we are dealing with the same issues, so while this might not be the best option for the recipients, it is definitely the best for us. Taking time to send personalized messages means the work day gets longer, and would prevent us from approving all HITs on the same day that they were submitted. Essentially, we had to make a choice, get the HITs approved faster, or communicate with more personalized messages. We discussed this with many of our top workers, and their feedback clearly showed that same day approvals were a much higher priority, so that is what we focused on.

    I once wrote to suggest that although the note might be nice (at first), some bonus structure would really be far more motivating. I got no response whatsoever, which suggests to me that your staff may be focusing their energy on the workers you don't want, and that's not helping you keep the ones you might prefer. - I can confirm that I did receive this message and even though I did not respond, I have already created several models for a bonus structure. I have yet to implement them because we use a software application to submit, manage and approve/reject our HITs, and implementing these any of these bonus models will require us to go into a development phase which is going to be quite costly. I expect to have this done by the end of the year.

    Speaking of pay structure, reading what you wrote here, I might suggest that if you feel there is a gap between the workers who do and don't do good work, perhaps start issuing a qualification to the ones whose work you like. - I have tried this and it has not produced positive results. Several years ago, when I first started using the Turk, this is exactly how I used it. What I found was that workers migrate frequently. We used qualification tests as well as individual qualifications and when new requesters entered the marketplace, they would flood the market with a limited amount of higher paying HITs and for obvious reasons, workers would migrate to those HITs until they were all gone. This put us in a constant cycle of qualifying workers which resulted in less actual work getting done.

    Maybe even have your typical work pay a bit less, and then issue the qualification to those who do well, opening up batches to those folks that you design to pay a bit more. Money talks on MTurk. It's not everything (at least it isn't for me), but it's a lot. - This idea has a lot of merit, but also a lot of risk. When you have production quota's to meet, you can't really play around too much with the pricing of the HITs. As you have stated, money talks on the MTurk. We have tried several pricing points and the one we are using right now works fairly well. Lower pricing points have resulted in a struggle to get all of the HITs done in a normal work day. Plus, the point is to provide a legitimate and fair option for the workers. Dozen's of workers have proven that our hits rate out at $9 per hour. I know it is not the best wage in the world, but I do believe it to be fair and consistent.
     
  14. Joelsfood

    Joelsfood User

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    Great to see you here and responding to mturker's concerns, KJ Ross. I was also someone rejected and blocked yesterday, but as I mentioned in another thread, I got a very reasonable response from KJRoss last night and had the block removed. I can live with strict, as long as there is communication. Cheers for joining here and responding to the concerns
     
  15. naturegirl

    naturegirl User

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    Thanks for addressing each of my comments, KJ Ross. It's good to hear the reasoning behind the procedures you choose to implement, and I'm impressed that you're willing to share such.

    It's also terrific that you have considered a number of these issues and sound like you have ongoing development of your HIT structure and platform. Very nice to know. :) It doesn't create that sense of pleasant nostalgia...but it does create curiosity, and that may be nearly as good. I'll be interested to watch how your HITs evolve!
     
  16. roddma

    roddma Member

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    I got unblocked. My next two hits were approved. I didn't say everyone was blocking me. The blocks aren't always our faults. My first was from a scam requester. I found out a little too late. I jus tprefer to put this behind me. it is resolved.
    Thank you for unblocking me. From now on, I will skip paragraphs I have trouble making unique or the original is bad. Yes three blocks cna get your acocunt banned. I am looking forward to do more for you. You can not be too careful with all the scam requesters around.
     
    #16 roddma, Nov 7, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2012
  17. kjross

    kjross Active Member

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    You are welcome, I am glad we could get this issue resolved and I look forward to the possibility of seeing more hits from you in the near future.

    KJ
     
  18. j0sh

    j0sh User

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    This is real encouraging. I wish all requester's would/could take the time to address issues the way you have. Thank you.
     
  19. kjross

    kjross Active Member

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    You are welcome. I bet more requester's would take the time to address the issues if they know that the worker's were already discussing them on the web. It is clear at this point that for any requester that is serious about using the AMT, the pen is DEFINITELY mightier than the sword. I know that doing my hits is not for everyone, but I simply can't afford to have potential workers avoid my hits because they think I might be a scammer.

    Also, you find out things that you might not have otherwise known, like the fact that workers lose their accounts if they are blocked a certain number of times. I did not know that, and was shocked to find out that we might have contributed to people having their accounts closed simply because their work did not meet our criteria. The way I see it, the only way to be successful on the AMT is if you create a win-win scenario.

    KJ
     
  20. haikus

    haikus New Member

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    That's interesting. You rejected two of my submissions because, according to what you said on turkopticon, while half of each was perfect, "my editor will have to fix the other half of your work, which I agree warrants a rejection." (Link). If what you say above is true, they should have been accepted.

    I think it's safe to say that you actually have no firm standards with respect to when to accept and when to reject, and anyone who does any of your HITs is taking a pretty big risk -- at least, if they care about their approval %.
     

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