FAQ

• What are the requester "attributes"?

  The "attributes" used to describe requesters answer the following questions:
  • communicativity: How responsive has this requester been to communications or concerns you have raised?
  • generosity: How well has this requester paid for the amount of time their HITs take?
  • fairness: How fair has this requester been in approving or rejecting your work?
  • promptness: How promptly has this requester approved your work and paid?
  A score of "0" means we have no data for that attribute.

• Will the extension send data from my computer that I don't know about?

  Absolutely not. Turkopticon will not send any data you do not know about from your computer. The extension you install is only used to scan Amazon Mechanical Turk as you browse so it can look up the requesters on the page and give you controls to view their reports or report them.

• Why are you doing this?

  Because we're two people who feel like the Amazon Mechanical Turk requesters are really, really excited because they get such good work for so little money while the workers are left to look out for themselves. We believe employers should be held accountable to the people who work hard for them.

• How do I know the requester wasn't reported by mistake?

  Right now, it is honor system. But it's pretty hard to accidentally report someone as it requires going to a new and explaining the report in a comment.

• How do I know the requester wasn't reported fraudulently?

  It's up to you to judge. If a report seems shady to you -- perhaps the person has reported many requesters with the same exact comment -- you can flag the report. When judging the credibility of a report, you can take flags and comments into account.

• Is there a way for requesters to clear their names?

  We don't have a way of removing reports but if requesters feel that a report is dishonest or a misunderstanding, they can create an account on Turkopticon, flag the report they wish to contest, and explain why in the comments.

• Can you show requesters who have high rates of rejecting work?

  Since Turkopticon relies on voluntarily submitted data, we can't collect this unless requesters wanted to tell us. And we doubt the requesters that are doing this will tell us.

• Will you support other browsers or versions of Firefox?

  We've only tested Turkopticon with Firefox 3.0. Let us know if it works with other versions. We probably will not develop IE support because we've heard that over 70% of Turk workers user Firefox. Since we're volunteers, we want to put our limited time and effort where it counts.

• Who has contributed to this effort? Who gets a shout out?

  Thanks to all the AMT workers who filled out our Turkers' Bill of Rights survey that told us people needed something like this. Thanks to Dolores Labs for suggesting how we could collect initial reviews and their enthusiasm for making AMT more fair and honest for Turkers.

Bug Reports, Known Issues, & Planned Features

• Please see the issue tracking page for current known bugs and issues. To submit a bug report or feature request not listed there, please click the "Feedback" button on the right side of this website to post to our GetSatisfaction forum. If you'd prefer, email us at turkopticon@differenceengines.com.