Rep Present Gathering Instagram Account Usernames

[NinaGI]

Hi all...

Very new to MTurk and want to be sure before creating my first request that my instructions are as clear and effective as possible for the workers, and that we are compensating them properly for their work, so I was directed to this forum to get a bit of help from you all!

What my team and I are trying to do is give a list of approx. 100 names of people (to start... our later project will include closer to 5,500 names). We need the Workers to find these people's Instagram and Twitter usernames for us.

Here are a couple of issues we see ourselves running into and would love your help to avoid:

1. If we give you a list of names and you're looking to find John Smith's Instagram username, it's likely that there will be dozens of John Smith Instagram accounts, but we need you to be able to verify it's the John Smith we're seeking.
The list of people we're looking for are photographers that are associated with our company, however, very few of the people on our list will actually have "photographer" or our company name within their Instagram/Twitter descriptions. So while having that information may definitely be helpful in verifying it's the right John Smith (potentially by finding his online photography portfolio and then finding his Instagram username from his website), we don't want words like "photographer," "photography" or our company name to actually be a requirement for the Workers when verifying that it's the right person's account.
Another issue with using photography or photographer as "keywords" in the Workers' search, is that many people on Instagram have those words in their usernames anyway, even if they're not actually photographers, just because Instagram is a place where everyday people feature their own personal photographs/photography. Is there a way to let Workers know as much info as possible so that they can more easily find the right people, without actually tying them down to ONLY finding people with those keywords associated with them?

2. This may be a multiple-step process in cases such as the one above...for example: a Worker may first search in Instagram to find John Smith, notice there are tons of "John Smith"s, then go to Google and type in "John Smith Photographer" to find three different online photography portfolios, then figure out which one is associated with our company – usually by looking in the contact information, and then from there, seeing the Instagram/Twitter account associated with their portfolio site. How would we best explain this process to Workers, and what would be a good number of workers to assign to the request/time for workers to complete each task/fair amount of payment?

Thanks for taking the time to help us out, and I hope we can get this request off the ground and running soon! Have a good day, everyone.

 

[SweetiePuff]

I have found in the past that examples with an image (or even a 1-2 page powerpoint) can be extremely effective in showing the worker exactly they type of results you are looking to achieve - this may also reduce the amount of emails you receive with questions.

If you could also specify what to do if an employee is just not found. Are you willing to accept: N/A as a result?

These are my initials thoughts on this project.

 

[SleepComa]

Interested.

 

[NinaGI]

SweetiePuff,

Thanks for the insight. I think we would be okay with N/A as a result unless the worker was sure (obviously with a small degree of uncertainty) that they successfully found the right person. That way, we would have blanks to fill ourselves, rather than having to cross-check/verify all 5,500 names. Would we be expected to pay Workers for HITs that receive an N/A response?

Does something in the range of $0.05-$0.10 per HIT sound reasonable for this type of work? Some may take under a minute to complete, especially for those on the list who have verified accounts or very clear descriptions identifying them as one of our photographers. But of course, there are the ones that would potentially be a multi-step process.

 

[NinaGI]

I have found in the past that examples with an image (or even a 1-2 page powerpoint) can be extremely effective in showing the worker exactly they type of results you are looking to achieve - this may also reduce the amount of emails you receive with questions.

If you could also specify what to do if an employee is just not found. Are you willing to accept: N/A as a result?

These are my initials thoughts on this project.

SORRY! DIDN'T REPLY TO YOUR COMMENT INITIALLY.. LIKE I SAID, I'M A BIT O FA NOOB AT THIS!!

SweetiePuff,

Thanks for the insight. I think we would be okay with N/A as a result unless the worker was sure (obviously with a small degree of uncertainty) that they successfully found the right person. That way, we would have blanks to fill ourselves, rather than having to cross-check/verify all 5,500 names. Would we be expected to pay Workers for HITs that receive an N/A response?

Does something in the range of $0.05-$0.10 per HIT sound reasonable for this type of work? Some may take under a minute to complete, especially for those on the list who have verified accounts or very clear descriptions identifying them as one of our photographers. But of course, there are the ones that would potentially be a multi-step process.

 

[SweetiePuff]

Thanks for the insight. I think we would be okay with N/A as a result unless the worker was sure (obviously with a small degree of uncertainty) that they successfully found the right person. That way, we would have blanks to fill ourselves, rather than having to cross-check/verify all 5,500 names. Would we be expected to pay Workers for HITs that receive an N/A response?

Any work that is submitted you can either: accept (and pay for) or reject (no payment). If your instructions state that you allow "N/A" as a result, then it would be presumed you would pay for that HIT when submitted. This is a tricky area because some workers will be quick to do one search and if the instagram/twitter account isn't immediately available they may put "N/A" and move on to the next HIT.

Does something in the range of $0.05-$0.10 per HIT sound reasonable for this type of work? Some may take under a minute to complete, especially for those on the list who have verified accounts or very clear descriptions identifying them as one of our photographers. But of course, there are the ones that would potentially be a multi-step process.

Again, a bit of a grey area for the work you are looking to have completed. 1 minute for $0.10 = $6/hr which is less than minimum wage. If some of the requests take longer than that, the hourly pay rate drops even further.

 

[TSolo315]

SweetiePuff,

Thanks for the insight. I think we would be okay with N/A as a result unless the worker was sure (obviously with a small degree of uncertainty) that they successfully found the right person. That way, we would have blanks to fill ourselves, rather than having to cross-check/verify all 5,500 names. Would we be expected to pay Workers for HITs that receive an N/A response?

Does something in the range of $0.05-$0.10 per HIT sound reasonable for this type of work? Some may take under a minute to complete, especially for those on the list who have verified accounts or very clear descriptions identifying them as one of our photographers. But of course, there are the ones that would potentially be a multi-step process.

Sounds like a $0.25+ per HIT job to me, to be honest.