Great community here. So I have an ongoing requirement for a download/upload task. I'd have a list of products that I want users to source PDF/.DOC manuals for, they would need to be found via Google or whatever, then downloaded and uploaded onto my server. Examples will be car related at first, then moving on into white goods etc. So the job would be something like: Find Car Manual/Brochure/Workshop Manual related to "Rover 75" vehicle. (I've chosen that because it's particularly difficult to find - I won't be able to vet them all for difficulty, some will be easy some hard) Currently, I've been working with people on Upwork to get the work done, but I find that the quality and speed of the work really drops off a cliff after a week or so. And one final little question in case anyone has time, can I hire people from mTurk on a longer term basis if they are a good fit for the job? Cheers!
Hey there I was TurkerHub who replied to you on reddit. Again I'd say yes, mTurk can do what you need, but the platform is largely what you make of it and there is obviously a steep learning curve. The more you can figure out your strategy pre-launch the better, so most folks here are happy to answer questions/give advice where we can (from the worker perspective, at least). You can assign good workers a "qualification" that you create and put it as a requirement for your tasks. This essentially "hires" those workers as they'll be the only ones who can accept/submit your tasks. If you have actual working examples of your task you can always reach out to workers in communities (like here) and see if any of them already have experience/interest in your tasks, otherwise you can go directly through mTurk to recruit workers. Both routes have pros/cons (here you can have convos with the actual workers, on mTurk you get a larger worker base but almost no human connection) so whichever you feel suites you best (or a combo of both!) can be utilized. Most US turkers wont work for less than minimum wage - most prefer much higher because we're responsible for the taxes a normal work job would take care of. Obviously the platform is filled with work far below that pay rate, which is why there's some animosity (that dude on reddit calling some requester a "scumbag" lol) but as long as you're fair with workers the platform can be really accurate for data collection purposes.
Thanks Chris, this is really good advice. So current plan is to talk with my developer to see what we can do in terms of making the workflow really simple, identifying dupes etc. Once I have a few options I'd love to post back on here and talk it over. The rate question is tricky, obviously I want to pay less, but I want high quality workers. So it's about finding that balance and perhaps only through experimentation will I get there. I'm 100% certain that this is a better route than hiring on Upwork as I have done in the past. One big final massive thank you
Please do. I love working on the requester end of things - its actually incredibly challenging to "get right" so I'm always interested in seeing other's approaches to problems that come up on the back end. I've got a spattering of experience with the dashboard, CLI, and API at this point so happy to help where I can. Hahaha - no worries I understand.. aside from all the technical aspects this is easily the hardest to balance on mTurk. If it helps most folks are much more forgiving of mistakes in this area when they can put a face to the name so reaching out to the communities the way you have never hurts. Even on an "anonymous" platform like mTurk human capital continues to be a real thing Good luck and keep us updated!
