So I joined the site a couple of weeks ago I think, and I've been trying to figure out all the tips offered here, and by far I've learned the most using Turker Hub. There are still some questions I don't find answers to, it seems. I figured if I could pose a few questions maybe someone could answer or share their knowledge. Thanks in advance. 1. Using MTS on a 500ms ping, surveys that get posted show up in the log and I receive a sound. I immediately click on them within 0.5 - 1.5 seconds. About 9 out of 10 times, they're already taken. I wonder, is this just common and bound to happen? Or are there some tips I should be following? For instance, is there a way to script something to automatically click and accept a specifically rated hit automatically that others are using giving them the advantage over me? 2. Also, in regards to the surveys, I started to wonder since most of them are posted with 1 available hit. I would guess some people are auto accepting them until they recognize the pay or subject and are returning them. Could I run an auto-refresher that would auto accept when the task becomes put back in the pool after a return or does it not work this way? 3. I try to find a guide on tips for specifically filtering MTS, but I can't find much in specific tips to improve the likelihood of hitting minimum wage. I've made about 120 dollars so far over about 700-800 hits. But the rate has been well below minimum wage. I've read the tips about which hits to ignore, and which continuous ones aren't worth doing. I wish I could explain to someone simply what my work process is and how I'm working for 4 or so hours and i can be told exactly what's bad about my method and how to improve it. But otherwise, are there any guides on efficiently using MTS to make quick profit that I haven't been able to find? In closing... How likely is it that after i reach 1000 hits or maybe 5000 hits, and I continue to gain knowledge and experience doing this, that I can start to make at least 8 dollars an hour in the near future? I've seen a couple of people saying they even made 100 in one day, but from what I've found consistently over 3 or 4 weeks, I don't see how that could ever be possible unless they worked for about 15 hours straight on a perfect stroke of lucky hits. Are these just people blowing smoke? Or is that actually something that can happen under the right circumstances?
In regards to your No 2. MTS has Hit Catcher built in as a feature. That runs what we commonly refer to as a panda. It auto refreshes the accept link to try to catch hits. You'll want to limit the number you have running at any one time, since the more you run, the more spread out the refreshes on each individual hit are. Most people recommend around 5 pandas running at once maximum. PandaCrazy is a standalone script that also does the same thing as Hit Catcher, which some people prefer. You may want to try it as well, but there's nothing wrong with sticking to MTS Hit Catcher. Are you getting many page request errors running at 500ms? That seems pretty fast. You generally can't get much faster than 900ms before running into problems. This will become even more of an issue as you start to use pandas. You'll need to find the balance of running the scripts as fast you can without triggering errors. If you're getting PREs you'll be slower than if you slow down the timer a bit. Getting over 1k approved is usually considered the first big hurdle. There's a fair amount that opens up after that. The main thing thougn, is just learning what you're good at and what workflow works for you.
No not getting errors yet, taking advantage of great internet, but i will slow it down before using the catcher. And yeah, I couldn't figure out exactly what the catcher does that's why I was searching around for like a wiki or guide just on how to appropriately use MTS. I see now the point of the catcher. Thanks for that info. Also, when I get to 1000 does this open up things automatically? Or from time to time should i need to go find hits that im not approved for and click request qualification on a lot? I always filter only on what i am qualified to work on and dont even bother looking at anything else yet since I'm so low in hits.
The quals based on number of hits approved and approval rate are automatic. Every now and then you should turn off the filter for just hits you're qualified for to see if there are qualifications you can get by taking a test. You can see the quals on a hit by clicking the hit to open the description. Hitting "Request Qualification" is almost always useless, but if there's a "Take Test" button you can do something to get that qual.
Internet helps but mturk has a limit to how many requests it will let you send in a certain amount of time. Basically it's built in ddos protection for mturk. If you try to refresh too many things at once it will give you an error that says too many page requests. You can read more info on that in our wiki here >> pre If you look in the top right corner on MTS Hit Finder you should see 2 numbers, the total scans and one that says pre. A few pre are okay, but every pre slows the number of actual scans that you're getting in that time.
