True potential of a year on mturk and my plea to you...

Discussion in 'Statistics' started by WalkingThrough, Dec 25, 2013.

  1. WalkingThrough

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    Hi,

    I made a post similar to this on another forum last week, but apparently they didn't like my message or what I am trying to promote because they removed the post with a pretty weak explanation as to why. This post is going to be quite a bit longer than your average forum post, but please, if you don't want to read it all, please at least skip to the end and read my plea to anyone who works on Mechanical Turk.

    This post is more directed towards workers with Masters, but I would love it if everybody would read it in the case that they get Masters some day.

    To start, before I show my year's statistics, here are some facts about what I do on mturk.

    - I am mainly doing mturk work to pay off a ridiculous amount of student loans as quick as possible
    - I do not do surveys, ever
    - I do not do anything writing related
    - Although I used to, I have not touched transcription in about 7 months
    - I started in November 2012 and received Masters in, I think, early March
    - Since receiving Masters, I have done less than 5 non-Masters tasks (besides 1 custom qualification requester that I had prior to Masters, and several Masters-turned-custom qualification requesters). I have not even looked through non-Masters tasks in at least 5 months.
    - I do not know what BJ's (requester, lol) are - I saw it talked about once a few months ago on this forum and it seemed like everyone was in love with the requester. I did not know who he was then and I still don't
    - I have the qualification for Taste of the World. It is the last non-Masters task that I found. I think they are under-payed and I despise them. I don't even do them if things are slow
    - I rarely work more than 8 or 10 hours a day. I will, however, if there is something available that I enjoy, but I try to keep it reasonable, because I work a job as well.
    - I NEVER do anything less than $8 an hour and it is rare for me to do something that pays that low. The average that I make hourly is around $13-$18. It can be more, but it is less common. Things have to be really slow for me to go under $10
    - I have never had a "mass rejection" - I have come to the conclusion that it generally is a result of poor quality work and that "scam" requesters are rare to non existent.
    - I never "do a test batch" and "email a requester" to say something like, I just did some test hits to see if they approve, once they do I will do more. It is a waste of time. I either do the task or I don't, but sometimes I will ask questions.
    - I have turkopticon, but I have not looked at a requesters review in months.
    - I have never used any forum to find work, to talk about work or anything else. I would guess that 90% of the tasks I do are not even talked about on them anyway

    Now the stats. There is a video of me clicking around on my dashboard for anyone that thinks they are Photoshopped or altered in any way. The image is slightly outdated because, since making this post on the other forum, I did not feel like making another video to back it up, however if you want to see what my dash looks like since that image was taken, there is a link underneath with the video link, but to save space on the post I'm not embedding it.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Screen recording of dash {http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cIlqi9nnu2}
    Screenshot of dash from today :: 12/25 :: {http://i.imgur.com/YS6s3MY.png}

    My plea to all workers

    Let me preface this by saying that I understand that workers without Masters have a more difficult time finding higher paying work. That is why I said this is mainly aimed towards other Masters.

    Please stop contributing to low paying tasks whenever possible. The more hits that you do that are crappy paying, the more they will be around, and the more future tasks will be low paying. The whole reason I am writing this is because it is so frustrating to see HORRIBLE paying tasks get done, and sometimes even quickly. I showed my statistics and what I made in a year...you can see what every day for the past 45 days looked like. Granted, the most recent week displayed was pretty crazy, but even taking that out you can see that there is consistently good paying work available. I guess I do not blame you if you have an hour to sit down and do whatever is available, and during that hour the best you can get is not the best, but in the end, do you really feel good about doing work for somebody that worse than even minimum wage? Which brings me to my next point/request

    .10/minute is not a good wage! Stop promoting it and being happy about it. It is not good pay regardless of how you are earning it.

    I have worked closely with several requesters from the very first task they put up. Twice, in some smalltalk conversations with two requesters, they both told me about how they originally offered .10/minute because that's what they were told the expected pay was. One requester came to a forum and asked what he should offer for his task. He was told by several people that he should pay .10/minute. The other requester was told in an email.

    I made three tasks under different requester names with bad pay recently. On each occasion I received multiple emails telling me that I should at least offer .10/minute because that's the good average.

    People: Even if your intentions are good, and even if you use the phrase "at least" .10/minute, you are not doing a good thing for the workers. If you asked someone how much to buy their car, and they told you at least $15,000, are you going to start your offer at $18,000?

    I do not have a problem with suggesting a requester raise their pay. I have done it before as well. Sometimes it simply is a case of a requester simply not realizing they are offering pay too low. On several occasions requesters have raised their pay because of things I've said, and I'm sure as others have said. That being said, please do not tell them .10/minute is the average, or even worse, good.

    If you are going to respond to a requester asking what he should offer, or if you are going to email a requester suggesting their pay is low, please keep these things in mind:

    be polite - don't say something like "your pay sucks, noone is going to do it, you're offering slave wages"

    just a simple change in phrase could mean a good paying requester, or a bad paying one. Instead of saying .10/minute, don't even name a specific price. Just say something like (assume the task takes one minute per hit) - "the average for a task like this is around .14-.22 a hit." - - - This leaves them to decide. Sure, they may still go low, and if they do you still get your .10/minute, but you have a much better chance of making a good contribution to the community of workers. You should never name a specific price...just always give an average/range.


    I hope that this helps things but I do realize making a noticeable change is extremely difficult, but if there's any chance me posting this could help in the long run even the tiniest bit, then it was worth it.. Not only do I want better paying work for myself, but if there is better paying work for me that means there is better paying work for everybody. Please at least consider not touching that task that pays $6/hour, but please also consider ending the ".10/minute is awesome" mentality that it seems everyone has.

    Happy holidays
    -D
     
  2. adavis

    adavis Member

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    Thank you so much for sharing this. This has really motivated me. I have masters, but I do still do non-masters hits including surveys. I'm sure I won't stop doing surveys because I have found some really high paying surveys. I have also found some low paying surveys that have resulted in being qualified for higher paying tasks. I even received a $45 bonus once for doing a $.50 survey, so I have had great results doing surveys. However, I will take your advice regarding other tasks because my numbers definitely do not look like yours.
     
  3. finallygoingtopost

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    Awesome thread. I also think people underestimate mturk. Judging the "i don't do list" on your list, I'm not sure what's left. I don't have Masters so I dont know what's available, what is it you're doing day to day?
     
  4. LIJOJOHNRBS

    LIJOJOHNRBS New Member

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    Awesome thread. It inspires all turkers.
     
  5. CinStrgBrd

    CinStrgBrd New Member

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    Thank you so much for this post! Just getting started, I was wondering about the "cents'' stuff. Very inspiring! Thanks again!
     
  6. MT Chris

    MT Chris Member

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    I just learned about mturk a couple days ago. Thanks for this post! :)
     
  7. doughgirl

    doughgirl User

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  8. major

    major New Member

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    What I don't understand from the picture and your post is, the average pay from the hits you've done is too low. For example, on Dec 17, 2013, 2280 HITs for $151.22 which averages to 151.22/2280 ~ $0.067.

    ?
     
  9. chaos

    chaos User

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    I don't understand... your math, which is correct, shows that he's averaging 6.7 cents per hit. So $0.067 per hit, over 2280 HITs is going to equal $151.22. Why is the average pay per hit "too low?" If you're doing over 6 cents per hit and they're fairly quick, it's going to add up fast.
     
  10. WAHME

    WAHME User

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    *edited because I may have made an error.



    Although I do find the OP hard to believe it is possible. You just won't have any kind of life. I have made close to 50,000 myself but have worked on mturk for over 4 years.
     
    #10 WAHME, Jan 21, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 21, 2014
  11. Marcus

    Marcus User

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    He says he turks 8-10 hours a day and has a job. Yeah, probably has no life. :eek: Worth the sacrifice if his student loan debt is massive.
     
  12. Rodabod

    Rodabod New Member

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    This guy is a big liar. His last day on the list he turked 3621 turks. Even if the turks only lasted 10 seconds a piece that wold be a little over 10 hours. How often have you guys had that many turks that lasted 10 seconds or less? I'm sure this is some slum that is making someone or a couple of people turk 24/7.

    Don't listen to this guy. It truly is false hope.
     
  13. chaos

    chaos User

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    Well for one thing, he could have put in extra time that particular day, maybe 12+ hours.

    As for how many HITs last 10 seconds or less? Well if you find the right ones, quite a few. I did about 600 HITS from one requester alone today and those took 6-8 seconds on average. Did about another 300 from another requester that took roughly 6 seconds each.
     
  14. evan3585

    evan3585 User

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    Dont know how much I believe this. Not to say its not true but I need to some pages from requesters Hits you have completed and paid to truly believe this. Something seems very fishy here. These all master hits from image on first post? Ive worked 8+ hours I never got close to what you have. about $200 everyday just sounds crazy to me. Ok I can understand every now and then but that amount consistently seems strange to me. You turn down that much Hits and sound very PICKY to me yet make that much. Please explain... Im listening! Now please prove me wrong.
     
    #14 evan3585, Jan 29, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 29, 2014
  15. pigmoose

    pigmoose User

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    Look guys, I can use Firebug to edit websites locally too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

    LOOOK AT ME IM IMPORTANT PLEASE PAY ATTENTION PLEASE

    [​IMG]
     
  16. evan3585

    evan3585 User

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    That was easy enough. Im rich now! The secret is dont do surveys, batch hits or anything and whatever you do dont work less then $8/h. 10 cent hits are pointless! Do the hits that are $400 or more each only. Any less is just a waste of time.

    [​IMG]
     
  17. WAHME

    WAHME User

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    Oh gee, can I play this game?

    Jan 28, 2014 971 971 0 0 $294.81
    Jan 27, 2014 1071 1071 0 0 $361.44
    Jan 26, 2014 901 901 0 0 $314.36
    Jan 25, 2014 937 937 0 0 $327.95
    Jan 24, 2014 591 591 0 0 $189.55
    Jan 23, 2014 360 360 0 0 $138.77

    Oh wait a minute. My totals are real.


    I am not saying that the OP is lying or telling the truth. All I am saying is that it is possible. Also, for the person talking about 3600 HITs in one day. The limit that Amazon allows is 3800 a day and I have hit it a few times myself just so you know.
     
  18. farhan

    farhan Member

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    the question is how can we get master qualification ? and after how much amount we can get ? also should we need to request it first ?
     
  19. trueakitalover

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    Here are some real numbers people this is my best year since I started....

    Approved HITs $6,346.73
    Bonuses $324.18
    Total Earnings Hide earnings details $6,670.91




    Total Earnings By Year (What's this?)
    Year Total Earnings
    2013 $1,067.42
    2012 $2,670.83
    2011 $741.31
    2010 $746.49
    2009 $314.40
    2008 $7.24
     
  20. chrissythepoet

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    How many hours do you work at this a day?
     

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