12/29 - Celebrating ChrisTurk Wednesday

Discussion in 'Daily mTurk HITs Threads' started by AlexZ, Dec 29, 2021.

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  1. Imanuel

    Imanuel Well-Known Turker

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    I'm gonna just be honest. Turking after 2020 is an absolute wasteland. It is plain and simple stressful. Once you realize that all of the people who keep telling you that you have to just keep pushing to earn more know something that you don't know, it all gets really old fast. Once you realize that they have access to batches that you don't have access to, that they have knowledge about requesters that you have never even heard of before, that they have massive lists of requester's and batches, and that they have scripts that they use to get first dibs on every last good HIT so that you are only left with the scraps, it all gets old incredibly fast.

    Like I scaled up as far as I can without actually doing batches, and I still, frankly speaking, do not make SHIT all. Then you get on forums and hear people talking about how much money they made today and it's FIVE, hell TEN, TWENTY times higher than what you made, it's rather annoying.

    Knowing that you will never be able to make that amount of money on MTurk without miraculously receiving a list of good requesters AND the quals to go with them is not the thing to make your day better. Because at the end of the day, it's often nigh impossible to find good batch HITs, unless the requester posts massive batches, because so many people have the best requesters in their watchers and will create PANDAs on all the good stuff and it just disappears... poof! Like I have sat in my scraper, looking for good HITs, just hoping to catch a glance of these mythical 40/hr batches that you guys are doing to get up to $300/day and I have seen just how fast some of this shit disappears. I have scrolled down the HITs page to look at all those batches that I don't have access to and don't have any discernable way to get the quals to, whose numbers steadily go down as other people plug away at them. And all it has made me realize is that the people who are better off in this hellscape are more often than not better off due to the fact that they just got here earlier than me. Not because they have done some supreme amounts of diligence to get the level where they are, not because of their patience, not because they know some secret to turking effectively that I don't know, but simply put a lot of you are only doing well because you just happened to get here first.

    It is really the inescapable truth that you will inevitably find once you have turked long enough. Like I have approached this wall from every direction and thought "Maybe I am just doing something wrong, let me try again and maybe it'll be better that way" but every single time I always hit the same wall, the same conclusion. That the people who do well in here consistently have some knowledge and HITs that I am, for all intents and purposes, unable to get and they are not willing to tell me it.

    AND I would just like you guys to know, that it is incredibly frustrating and a whole bunch of bs. Because I am not sure that you guys actually really know how it feels anymore, now that you've been Turking for years and have access to all the good quals and all the nice good HITs. But the people who don't have that are just trying to survive on the scraps yall don't get around to doing and surveys. And the people even further below without good batches or CR1... well they are really shit out of luck.

    MTurk is a platform that already has enough workers to do all of the tasks that are worth doing and everyone else is basically just STUCK, plugging away at rather shit 3/hr HITs hoping to survive it seems. And trying to sell people on this idea, that if they are patient and just keep plugging away, that they might actually really make something on this hellsite. Like I have been around for a year now basicallly, plugging away, doing my best, daily. And I still only average out at 35 dollars per weekday.

    This has been a long rant... BUT this is all to say... People who are turking down in the fucking depths of this hellscape have rather good reasons to be annoyed and stressed. Especially stressed, people don't just start turking because they love performing low paid tasks or because they want to take surveys all day long. Most are turking for money, because they need money for some reason. You may think someone is an ash hole or disrespectful, but you don't really know them, what stresses them, or why they are turking. So even if you want to "put someone in there place" or "let them know how disrespectful they are" or "how uneducated they are" it is still better to not pile onto somebody on this forum, especially when you don't actually know what they are going through. You may be angry or annoyed, but a whole group of people just piling onto a person is still textbook bullying no matter whether you frame it as yall being good people who "just want to help". It costs nothing to ignore someone.

    Instead of piling onto some random person who you know basically nothing about, who is probably annoyed and thought they could just air out their grievances in a "safe space" maybe just ignore them. Some people are turking from their death beds, some people are turking because they literally cannot get other jobs, some people are turking because they have jobs which do not literally pay them enough to survive. You don't know whether the person you're jumping on is starving on the other side of the screen, having the worst day of their life, or has already been driven to the brink so maybe... don't just pile on them :dunno: Maybe instead, just ignore them and go about your day happy that you are down in the gutters where making seven dollars a day turking is an accomplishment.

    This is not meant to be a defense or really much of an attack of anyone, I just want yall to know just how stressful turking is. As well as perhaps remind you to be mindful (or perhaps even grateful) about what you have that others may not have. As well as a reminder that you don't really know these people on this forum, so maybe don't go out of your way to stress them out even more.

    TL;DR : Please be mindful about the person on the other side of the screen. Turking, especially at lower levels, is extremely stressful and the nature of being a new Turker may have changed since the time when you were a new Turker. You probably do not actually know the people who you are interacting with daily on these forums, but that is not a good excuse to gang up on them and say things you wouldn't actually dream of saying to their faces.

    Your silence costs nothing, but your words may cost someone even more.
     
  2. Yuk

    Yuk Zing King

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    He was condoning scamming requesters. I will always dog pile on that shit. I will never ignore anyone that does that, because they are supporting the death of the platform. I didn't address that part because other people already did and focused on his appalling attitude instead, but if he comes back and tries to justify scamming again I will pile on him.. again. That kind of belief (scamming requesters is ok) has no place here.
     
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  3. joie de vivre

    joie de vivre Survey Slinger

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    He called me a c*&nt on Reddit 3 weeks ago. I would lead you to the post but he deleted it soon after and hasn't returned to the subreddit. I helped him here despite that, was actually very nice to him one night, so forgive me if I don't consider his feelings to be all that precious.

    As to the other things, please consider that I started on Mturk from exactly the same place as every other person here. I started with a hit count of 0. Everything I am able to achieve on the platform now is because I have been patient and worked. A few things might have been easier then than now, might have, but it wasn't the land of milk and honey that you seem to believe.
     
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  4. Imanuel

    Imanuel Well-Known Turker

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    Ooh yikes :emoji_grimacing: accidental double post
     
  5. joie de vivre

    joie de vivre Survey Slinger

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