Hi, I'm Dash, friend of Jerami

Dash

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Hi,
I met mturk mentor Jerami on twitter in the #100DaysOfcode challenge. I vanlife and he recommended mturk to me.

I'm curious, how many hours of mturking did it take until you were able to make above minimum wage for your time? On the qualifications page it said it could take weeks or YEARS?! If that's the case, I'm not sure if this would be worth my time.

In the past few days I've been reading about mturk. I made an mturk account, read the Your First 1000 HITS page and the page about getting Qualifications on here. I haven't gotten my hands dirty yet on mturk.

Thanks for reading and any thoughts you have.

-Dash
 

aveline

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Hi, welcome.

Honestly, MTurk is one of those things where you get what you put in. There's a steep learning curve for sure, and the fact that you start out with like no qualifications makes it difficult to really get going. But if you apply yourself to learning the ins and outs, and can treat this like a real job (staying focused and motivated), I don't really see any reasons why you shouldn't be able to make something comparable to minimum wage within a few weeks to a month. I think the key things are really motivation and an ability to adapt (which also includes being able to adapt your schedule because work can post at any time). If you're familiar with JavaScript or AutoHotKey, or are at least willing to become familiar, then that will help a lot, too.

It's not for the faint of heart though, especially if you need real wages. Most end up giving up because they can't really make it worth their time, but many learn to do just fine. I don't think it would take years, though. I think you would know within your first month or so whether or not this is the right place for you.
 

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I think you would know within your first month or so whether or not this is the right place for you.
Great explanation. I can definitely give it a month and see how it fits in with my life.
 
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Dash

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If you're familiar with JavaScript or AutoHotKey, or are at least willing to become familiar, then that will help a lot, too.
Oh also, yes I do know javascript . Where can I found out more about how js can help me with turking?
 

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Oh also, yes I do know javascript . Where can I found out more about how js can help me with turking?
I'm not really aware of any sort of guide that goes over exactly how to use JS on MTurk, but JS is used for the vast majority of the scripts that we use. Scraper scripts are really popular for finding HITs (the two most popular ones right now are MTurk Suite's HIT Finder and HIT Forker, which is a fork of HIT Finder). If you've read about pandas at all, there are a number of scripts for managing and grabbing HITs with them, like MTS' HIT Catcher or Panda Crazy. A lot of people also just make scripts for certain HITs that they like that tend to pop up a lot, to try to make doing them more efficient. If you go to Greasy Fork and search for mturk you'll get an idea of the different stuff that people make scripts for on here. Just be warned that a lot of stuff on there is probably outdated, so I wouldn't grab anything unless you know it's still being updated.
 
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mboone73

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Honestly, you’d be better off taking a minimum wage job than turking nowadays. There are an infinite number of jobs that are better than this platform. Imagine a job that lowers your hourly rate based on what task you’re performing. That’s what turk is. Or a job that asks you to clock out when you go to the bathroom. That’s what turk is. Not to mention the lack of any benifits or overtime whatsoever. Sure, you can spend months working for less than minimum wage in the hope that you’ll get a closed qual or masters, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
 
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Jerami

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Hi,
I met mturk mentor Jerami on twitter in the #100DaysOfcode challenge. I vanlife and he recommended mturk to me.

I'm curious, how many hours of mturking did it take until you were able to make above minimum wage for your time? On the qualifications page it said it could take weeks or YEARS?! If that's the case, I'm not sure if this would be worth my time.

In the past few days I've been reading about mturk. I made an mturk account, read the Your First 1000 HITS page and the page about getting Qualifications on here. I haven't gotten my hands dirty yet on mturk.

Thanks for reading and any thoughts you have.

-Dash
Hey Dash @Dash! Sorry I missed your Intro Day! Nice to see you on here! Like aveline @aveline said, you definitely get out what you put in. And, you'll make a more steady income from a more steady position like mboone73 @mboone73 says. But, if you're moving in a van a lot and want the freedom to make money whenever you have the ambition and stop when you'd like, this has a low entry point for such a high level of freedom and makes a great supplement for when hourly jobs aren't feasible.

Let me know if I can help!:)
 
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Jerami

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...and as far as using javascript to make more with mTurk, it's mostly used for batches, after finding and "PandA-ing" HITs. If there's a batch that is relatively simple yet underpaid, it's because it takes too long to complete it. If you can speed that up, you'll increase the pay-per-minute of the batch, for yourself. Ways people do this are, when the batch is repetitive, script the repeating bits. This can be done by defaulting checkboxes or other <inputs>, mapping things to different keys or (edit)auto-loading helper apps or pages(Google auto-search, TripAdvisor auto-fill form from HIT and anything else you can think of).
 
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mboone73

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I might have been a bit negative in my response. Making $9.00 a day will do that to you. Turk makes me want to kick flowers sometimes, but I'm terrible at it. There are a lot more helpful and knowledgeable people around these parts than I.
 
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Welcome to the forum!!! This is a great place and so helpful. I started to make more when I posted on here!
 
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