Recovering from a bad HIT Approval Rate

As any experienced turker will tell you, recovering from a bad HIT approval rate can be a frustrating experience.  It seems to take forever to come back from the damage that just one or two MTurk HIT rejections can do and all the time your HIT approval rate is damaged, your ability to make money online is compromised.

If you are new to turking and aren’t aware, Amazon Mechanical Turk calculates your HIT approval rate by comparing how many of your MTurk HITS have been rejected by requesters for HITs submitted against how many have been accepted.  The resulting percentages are called your HIT rejection rate and your HIT approval rate.  (All these figures can be seen on the Dashboard part of your Mechanical Turk account.)

The problem is that many of the requesters insist on a HIT approval rate of 95% or better as a qualification requirement and if you don’t meet the qualification standard, they don’t allow you do their HITs.  These MTurk HITS are very often some of the best paid ones and so getting a bad HIT approval rate can really damage your ability to make money online.

As I have mentioned before, when I started out with Mechanical Turk, I didn’t appreciate the problems that having a bad HIT approval rate might bring, so I just tried out lots of different HITs without really caring too much whether some of them got rejected or not.  This came back to haunt me and I learnt my lesson accordingly.

More recently, however, I have seen my HIT approval rate drop again through no fault of my own.  This was apparently because, as I found out from turkers at TurkopticonToolbar, a requester who had been reliable in the past suddenly started using new (faulty) software which was wrongly automatically rejecting HITs that were actually completely fine.  I did complain about it, of course, but it was to no avail, as usually happens!  (See 10 reasons why I hate Mechanical Turk)

Anyway, I’ve spent my time recently working my socks off on getting my HIT approval rating back up to 95%.  It isn’t fun.  As well as my choice of HITs being reduced, each time I do a new HIT I am worried about getting another rejection and getting pushed back down again (once bitten, twice shy!). 

I’m not sure if I mentioned it in my comparison of MTurk and Microworkers: ­MTurk or Microworkers, which is best?,  but Microworkers are more generous with when it comes to recovering from a bad HIT approval rate.  With Microworkers your rate will recover naturally with time, even if you don’t do anything - so long as you don’t keep picking up rejections you will be okay.

In conclusion, my advice would be to not let your MTurk HIT approval rate fall below 95% if you can possibly help it.  If it does happen, I would focus on getting it back up by doing ‘safe’ HITs, that’s to say HITs being offered by MTurk requesters that you trust, as you can’t afford to get any more rejections.  Be prepared for a long haul, though - because the HIT approval rate is a proportional figure, you will need many new HIT approvals to make up for just a few rejections.

The Turkopticon Toolbar and Making Money with Mechanical Turk (MTurk)

I have raved about the Turkopticon Toolbar more than once in passing in my posts about Amazon MTurk (Mechanical Turk) but I love this device so much, I wanted to dedicate an entire blog post to it.  It really is the most wonderful aid for Mechanical Turk workers (also known as turkers) and a must for everyone trying to make money with Mechanical Turk.  As well as the Turkopticon Toolbar itself, there is also an online community of turkers associated with it, who can provide an invaluable source of information for anyone who is trying to make money online using MTurk.

How much does it cost?

The Turkopticon Toolbar costs nothing to download and install, that’s right, it’s free! 

How do I install it?*

There are two versions, one for Firefox and one for Google Chrome.  Provided you get the right version, installation is simple.  There is no version for Internet Explorer, but if you use MTurk regularly to make money online, then I would recommend that you download Firefox, just for the Turkopticon Toolbar, you can always just carry on using Internet Explorer for everyday use and click on Firefox when you use Mechanical Turk.

How does the Turkopticon Toolbar work?

Basically, Turkopticon is letting you know how other turkers have got on before with specific MTurk HIT requesters.  It does this by placing little button arrows next to the requesters when you are on the Amazon MTurk HITs page.  By clicking on the arrow, you see how previous turkers have rated that MTurk requester.  They are graded according to how quickly they pay, how fair they are at assessing HITs etc.  Turkers also write reviews in some cases.

Source:

http://turkopticon.differenceengines.com/

This means that with the Turkopticon Toolbar you can avoid the worst MTurk requesters by looking at the reviews before you do a HIT.  You can also write a review after you complete a HIT and get paid and let other turkers know how you got on with that MTurk requester.

Are there any problems associated with the Turkopticon Toolbar?

I personally have not encountered any.  The program is also very small, so I’ve not noticed it slowing my browser in any noticeable way.

I know this probably sounds like a glowing endorsement, but as far as the Turkopticon Toolbar goes, I struggle to think of any negatives.  It really is a must if you want to make money with Mechanical Turk.

Oh, I nearly forgot to give you the download link, you can get the toolbar HERE!

*UPDATE: At the time of writing, the Turkopticon Toolbar isn’t working with Firefox 5, so I have gone back to Firefox 4 in order to use it!  I’ve had similar problems with other Firefox add-ons too recently, the root cause being that Firefox rushed out version 5 only a few months after they brought out version 4 and the add-on developers haven’t had enough time to react.  Hopefully this issue will be resolved soon.  FURTHER UPDATE: THIS MATTER IS NOW RESOLVED!

Microworkers scam: are accusations about payment problems justified?

I recently received a comment from someone on one of my make money online articles complaining about Microworkers payment problems and not being able to get his Microworkers earnings transferred over to his PayPal account.  He was upset and said he couldn’t understand why Microworkers insisted on mailing a PIN number out to him, which he’d not received, and he also implied (at least this was my interpretation) that the whole thing was a Microworkers scam.

As this was not the first time that I have seen complaints made against Microworkers about payment problems online, I thought it merited me writing a blog post.  I figured that I could also give you my own experience of what happened when I asked to transfer my Microworkers earnings from Microworkers to a PayPal account for the first time.  Before that though, I will go through the complaints about payment problems one at a time and provide some possible explanations.

Why do Microworkers send out PIN numbers by mail?

You would have to ask them that.  Although, often though it is done by companies for tax purposes, when they are attempting to show the IRS that they know who they are paying and sending out PIN numbers is a way of verifying someone’s address. 

Is it in Microworkers interest to scam people?

I personally don’t believe that it is.  They are a small company with a relatively small online workforce, certainly when compared to a giant like Amazon and their Mechanical Turk (MTurk), their main make money online rival.  I can’t see why they would want to alienate workers or get a bad reputation just for the sake of a few dollars.  (I have been critical in the past that Microworkers seem too lenient when it comes to some dodgy tasks being advertised on their website, but that is not the same as saying that Microworkers themselves are not legit!)

My own experiences of transferring my earnings from Microworkers to PayPal

Here's what happened with me back when I first requested a Microworkers payment of earnings to my PayPal account online.  I made a request to transfer $10 from my Microworkers earnings to my PayPal account and noted the date that I’d done this.  Within a few days, a message appeared in my Microwokers Account saying that the PIN number had been sent out.  I waited.  After a week had gone by, I began to get a little nervous.  After 10 days of waiting, I began to wonder if there really was a Microworkers scam.  After two weeks, however, I did receive my PIN number and guess what, the letter with the PIN number in it had come all the way from Slovenia (I live in the USA), so I guess that is a big part of the reason why it took so long!

Anyway I entered the PIN on the Microworkers website, which was accepted.  I then had to wait 4 more days while my Microworkers earnings were “pending withdrawal”, according to the Microworkers website.  All in all the process took just under three weeks from me initiating the payment to receiving it in my PayPal account.

So my advice would be to anyone who is seeking to access their Microworkers earnings for the first time, if my case is anything to go by, you will get your money, but don’t expect it to happen quickly!