Experiences in Crowd Sourcing
Mechanical Turk
(Pre-Course Assignment: Daniel Arbix)
I have signed up to Mechanical Turk as a Brazilian citizen (not all HIT opportunities were available, then). I have tried to explore different tasks to check the diversity the platform offers for workers. There are some amusing tasks to be performed, but most â against the websiteâs Participation Terms â, are boring schemes to distort internet advertisement payments or to gather active e-mails (for spam or worse, I presume). There are also numerous HITs which demand fake reviews of products and websites, or which require âturksâ to show support to social-networking profiles or events, and even to write posts in blogs making compliments to the blog ownerâs clever analyses. A short summary of my experiences follows.
1st try: bad page design, no $ I saw a task as available, was able to follow the instructions and actually perform it on a third party website, but then I realized that the event that would trigger a confirmation number required for my payment had already expired, so of course no payment was made to my account. This was the first contact I had with HITs designed to redirect traffic to earn advertisement revenues (it was described as âa test for page load time, very easy, for USD 2.00â).
2nd try: the second HIT I tried had the following misleading instructions:
- "This HIT is an easy to complete 'sign up' assignment. It shouldn't take you longer than 2 minutes to complete. Many thanks for your time! Simply go to: http://www.awin1.com/awclick.php?mid=633&id=93282 Sign up. Then send a print screen of your confirmation email to: mark.studentearnings@gmail.com and write your username and approximate time of sign up in the box below"
The site redirected me to http://www.offersclick.co.uk/offers/SiteRender.aspx?SiteID=501&ThemeID=21&q14259=AFW&q26274=93282 Again, it seems like arbitrage of internet advertisement revenues⦠It was impossible to complete the task within the assigned time â the form-filling advertisements website took too much to load â, so I returned the HIT (and received no $, in spite of losing a lot of time)
3rd try: the HIT had the following description:
- "Complete free online quote form. MUST BE 18 OR OLDER AND LIVE IN USA TO COMPLETE THIS HIT Visit Site - Enter Name and Email - Takes less than a minute. IMPORTANT: Eligible only to those who have not yet signed up to this offer. Please don't use disposable e-mails as well. Let's keep this site honest. INSTRUCTION: 1) To get started, visit this website: http://www.aislezone.com/mturk-offer02.php 2) Select make, model and enter zip code. Click "get quotes" 3) Complete the form and click on "get free dealer quotes" REQUIRED PROOF: On activation confirmation copy/paste or type full text to the box below starting with : "Sent!..." "
The time-description was fair, and I received payment after two days. I also (stupidly) provided my real Stanford e-mail, with the result of getting my mailbox now filled by car dealers messages. Again, the HIT seems like arbitrage of internet advertisement revenues.
4th try: the HIT had the following description:
- "Data Collection-Google Results Reward: $1.25 per HIT Insert address, perform google searches and indicate first result"
This HIT was an honest one, requiring a verification of search results (Google), all related to the same company. Time description was fair, and my $ arrived a day later.
5th try: the HIT had the following description:
- "Rate faces of candidates running for office. Usually takes less than 5 minutes. You can find the survey here: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/207922/faces3 At the end of the survey, you'll find a code. To get paid, please enter the code below:"
This was a fun, quick HIT. It had a fair time description, and payment was received after a day. I was, however, a terrible subject for the MIT social psychology survey, since most pictures to be rated are of Brazilian politiciansâ¦