Hello all,

I created this account because I felt like getting to know you all better. I have been lurking these forums in the past couple months and have noticed that threads have been created, both positive and negative, for some of the jobs I have built and run. My goal is to get some feedback from you all and also to provide advice to help you all succeed. After all we have a co-dependent relationship, we need each other to succeed.

Furthermore I would like to clarify that, I am not part of the customer support team although I do sit about 10 feet away from Michael. I understand that he has a bit of a love/hate relationship with you guys haha. To clarify, I will not be responding to customer support type requests. I simply wish to interact with you all and get your feedback. If I can use your feedback to improve the jobs I build then we all win.

Thank you,

M

P.S. Have any of you worked in a "Find some Guess Jeans!" job a couple months ago? That was mine. I ended up buying about 4 pairs from the suggestions you guys submitted.

Hi M, welcome to the forum. I would like to ask for suitable examples in "Identify Product Attributes" tasks. Is unfair to get expelled for not having good explanations. Is insane to have to categorize baby clothes only based on an example of a toy box. Examples are needed because using our "best judgement" (as said on tasks) get us expelled and frustrated. Thank you.

I rarely even try to do any tasks. Some of the questions are impossible to complete correctly. There is no option for a "none of the above" answer, or something similar that would allow one to move past impossible questions.

I've even had the correct answers and still come up 100% incorrect. That's incredibly frustrating and a total waste of my time.

Welcome to the boards,it's great to have you here!
My biggest problem with CF have always been the faceless&soulless responses i got(tho to be fair answering 10k tickets every month probably does that to you),so having you here happy to engage in a conversation is great!

Quote:To clarify, I will not be responding to customer support type requests

I've got two questions,i don't think they are customer support related,more like general policy related so i'll take my chances =)

1-Why does automated flags exist?
I've been flagged two times both times by the same task(on different id's) and both times automated flags,the second time i got flagged i was told CF would contact the task author regarding their use of automated flags but as you can see from this thread this(and many other task authors) are continuing to issue these type of flags;

Major flag without any reason | ClixSense Forum

So why do they exist?Who benefits from these flags?
Back in November(i'm sure you remember) thousands of people got flagged by the 'find c level admin' and 'evaluate local merchant' tasks,it took about a month to get back our badges and lots of people(me included) had accuracy over %85 on these tasks.

After getting flagged the second time i've stopped working on new tasks that i don't recognize coz i'm worried about losing my badges due to automated flags,nowadays i only do tasks that i know won't issue these types of flags and/or check the boards before attempting newer tasks to see whether any problems exist.

And does task authors have any drawbacks for issuing these types of flags?


2-What is the policy regarding browser refreshers?
I've opened a ticket about this but the answer i got was so absurdly off topic i didn't push it further.
I've seen people flat out admit that they are using refreshers on their browser to get more tasks,i don't think that's fair,i've never used them and never will but lots of people are using it and when it comes to Clixsense weekly contest i think use of these kind of extensions give an edge to the people that use them.

Should i use 'report violation' link the next time i see people admit that they are using these kind of extensions?

Quote:P.S. Have any of you worked in a "Find some Guess Jeans!" job a couple months ago? That was mine. I ended up buying about 4 pairs from the suggestions you guys submitted.

I remember this,100x bonus was given to the people that got their answers validated.
Hopefully we'll get to show more of our 'Google-FU' in the future =)

Anyway thanks for being here and hopefully you'll take the time to answer and clarify some things for us,take care.

disappointed I lost my two badges. I worked hard to earn those badges and all of a sudden they were lost, Still no badge.

n0vafcbk wrote: Hi M, welcome to the forum. I would like to ask for suitable examples in "Identify Product Attributes" tasks. Is unfair to get expelled for not having good explanations. Is insane to have to categorize baby clothes only based on an example of a toy box. Examples are needed because using our "best judgement" (as said on tasks) get us expelled and frustrated. Thank you.

Could you give me an example job id. I don't run these jobs.

freelizard wrote: I rarely even try to do any tasks. Some of the questions are impossible to complete correctly. There is no option for a "none of the above" answer, or something similar that would allow one to move past impossible questions.

I've even had the correct answers and still come up 100% incorrect. That's incredibly frustrating and a total waste of my time.

Sorry to see that you have had a bad experience. There are many reasons why some tasks are designed in certain ways. One thing that I have often noticed is that contributors sometimes contest test question thinking they are right, but when I check it they clearly ignored reading the instructions. To be clear, i'm not saying you fit into that group. There are unfair test questions out there. It's a pain in the ass I agree but we attempt to catch them and fix them. Sometimes it is difficult because clients create bad test questions and it is out of our control.

Donitaxxx wrote: Welcome to the boards,it's great to have you here!
My biggest problem with CF have always been the faceless&soulless responses i got(tho to be fair answering 10k tickets every month probably does that to you),so having you here happy to engage in a conversation is great!

Quote:To clarify, I will not be responding to customer support type requests

I've got two questions,i don't think they are customer support related,more like general policy related so i'll take my chances =)

1-Why does automated flags exist?
I've been flagged two times both times by the same task(on different id's) and both times automated flags,the second time i got flagged i was told CF would contact the task author regarding their use of automated flags but as you can see from this thread this(and many other task authors) are continuing to issue these type of flags;

Major flag without any reason | ClixSense Forum

So why do they exist?Who benefits from these flags?
Back in November(i'm sure you remember) thousands of people got flagged by the 'find c level admin' and 'evaluate local merchant' tasks,it took about a month to get back our badges and lots of people(me included) had accuracy over %85 on these tasks.

After getting flagged the second time i've stopped working on new tasks that i don't recognize coz i'm worried about losing my badges due to automated flags,nowadays i only do tasks that i know won't issue these types of flags and/or check the boards before attempting newer tasks to see whether any problems exist.

And does task authors have any drawbacks for issuing these types of flags?


2-What is the policy regarding browser refreshers?
I've opened a ticket about this but the answer i got was so absurdly off topic i didn't push it further.
I've seen people flat out admit that they are using refreshers on their browser to get more tasks,i don't think that's fair,i've never used them and never will but lots of people are using it and when it comes to Clixsense weekly contest i think use of these kind of extensions give an edge to the people that use them.

Should i use 'report violation' link the next time i see people admit that they are using these kind of extensions?

Quote:P.S. Have any of you worked in a "Find some Guess Jeans!" job a couple months ago? That was mine. I ended up buying about 4 pairs from the suggestions you guys submitted.

I remember this,100x bonus was given to the people that got their answers validated.
Hopefully we'll get to show more of our 'Google-FU' in the future =)

Anyway thanks for being here and hopefully you'll take the time to answer and clarify some things for us,take care.

1. Automated flagging serves many purposes, I can't get into the details but primarily though it's a quality control tool. If you get automatically flagged you are just removed from the job. To the best of my knowledge it doesn't affect you otherwise. Manual flagging is the scary one because it strips your badges. Unfortunately some clients use it in the wrong manner. We are looking into improving this functionality and educating clients on when to use it and when to use other means.

2. I don't know enough about this to comment. I don't spend much time on the contributor side, which incidentally is one of the other reasons I am here. To understand our product better I need to understand every side of it. This is something I will study up on.

mclloyd86 wrote: disappointed I lost my two badges. I worked hard to earn those badges and all of a sudden they were lost, Still no badge.

I can see that you are very active so I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. We have systems in place that find and kick out contributors that are "scammy", unfortunatley that means that sometimes innocent people get caught in the filters. Have you filed any tickets? We're generally pretty good with restoring badges to those who haven't done anything wrong.

M

Hmm , impossible questions, lost badges , unfair/erroneous flagging , poor client submissions.

So far I'm seeing no real attempt to change a web site that should NOT have had these types of issues way before the rollout of the site - I'm a little surprised there is yet little or no competition in this niche - surely this can be done better ,and sooner or later someone will.

So will your site improve or get relegated to the dust bin of internet history?

I'm hoping for the improvement option

Task example: 688148
In this task we had to categorize bedding items, for them a crib bedding is not toddler size. Many people don't even try these kind of tasks because of unfair corrections and lack of instructions and it's a shame because they're easy and fast. Thank you for answering M.

Hi M, welcome to the forum!
It's nice having you here.

I remember your "Find some Guess Jeans!" job: I completed it but I couldn't find accurate results, so I didn't get the awesome bonus you offered. I'll have better luck next time

I think that unfair corrections are a big flaw for CF, they're quite annoying.
If solving this problem isn't possibile, maybe CF could work on improving some features, so that unfair corrections are less frustrating?

Some examples:
- If you're unfairly expelled from a task you won't get reward; it would be cool to be paid automatically, if our answers turn out to be right and our accuracy is adjusted.
- I'd like to be able to attach more than one screenshot on tickets; I know that we could attach more later, but submitting all informations at once would be more efficient.
- I think that upvotes could be improved, somehow; we should be able to put links, screenshots and such (describing everything is not clear enough).

That's all for now, I'll probably write more suggestions in the future

I got no reply. I lost my level 2 badge due to a very unfair task. It was so weird because I got a message from the task author. It was last November. Then I lost my level 1 due to the new updates. On my CF I got a message that I have a lot of admin flags. It was not fair I guess because I completed those tasks before the new updates. I worked hard to earn those badges and it is just so sad that I lost it in a glance, This is really frustrating.

Hello and Welcome...

You said that you're not Michael. What does 'M' stand for? May we know your name please...

Hi M, Welcome to the forum, Its a great proactive step you have taken. Appreciate it.

Looking forward to work on your tasks.

What makes me laugh anyone can claim that they work for Crowdflower

you welcome, someworker really it will help us to communicate with crowdflower problems??

JillianV wrote: Hi M, welcome to the forum!
It's nice having you here.

I remember your "Find some Guess Jeans!" job: I completed it but I couldn't find accurate results, so I didn't get the awesome bonus you offered. I'll have better luck next time

I think that unfair corrections are a big flaw for CF, they're quite annoying.
If solving this problem isn't possibile, maybe CF could work on improving some features, so that unfair corrections are less frustrating?

Some examples:
- If you're unfairly expelled from a task you won't get reward; it would be cool to be paid automatically, if our answers turn out to be right and our accuracy is adjusted.
- I'd like to be able to attach more than one screenshot on tickets; I know that we could attach more later, but submitting all informations at once would be more efficient.
- I think that upvotes could be improved, somehow; we should be able to put links, screenshots and such (describing everything is not clear enough).

That's all for now, I'll probably write more suggestions in the future

Awesome! Here's some fun facts about that job. 295 of you participated. I gave out $87 in bonuses mostly because I wanted to bonus those that really tried and gave me great sources to look through. I did not end up finding the exact jeans I was looking for in my size but it was really close. Here's a screen cap of the job.

Screenshot

mclloyd86 wrote: I got no reply. I lost my level 2 badge due to a very unfair task. It was so weird because I got a message from the task author. It was last November. Then I lost my level 1 due to the new updates. On my CF I got a message that I have a lot of admin flags. It was not fair I guess because I completed those tasks before the new updates. I worked hard to earn those badges and it is just so sad that I lost it in a glance, This is really frustrating.

PM me your contributor id. I can't make any promises but I'll take a look only because I'm curious.

TigerHeart wrote: Hello and Welcome...

You said that you're not Michael. What does 'M' stand for? May we know your name please...

Let's just keep it at M for now

Marcel666 wrote: What makes me laugh anyone can claim that they work for Crowdflower

Whoops you caught me! I'm just here for the imaginary internet points and your approval. Please don't tell anyone.

I have a doubt... Is Michael really a human or robot? Because I get the same copy-paste answers for all of my tickets and sometimes the answer will not be relevant at all to the query.. For a particular unfair test question, it took nearly a month to adjust the accuracy...

To be honest, I don't want to waste my time in sending tickets to unsupportive support team. You spend so much amount of money in creating tasks, but there are no employees to help us quickly.. You have to get more human employees to make it fast track. Is there only Michael in support team?? If so, my suggestion is to spend some money in recruiting some employees to get our tickets answered in 24 hours. Here at we get a very fast reply from the support.. I am really impressed with .

I hope that if you really are from CF and really want to bring change to make CF better; you'll recommend this to CF for this Year.. Take it as a request from a Contributor..

TigerHeart wrote: I have a doubt... Is Michael really a human or robot? Because I get the same copy-paste answers for all of my tickets and sometimes the answer will not be relevant at all to the query.. For a particular unfair test question, it took nearly a month to adjust the accuracy...

To be honest, I don't want to waste my time in sending tickets to unsupportive support team. You spend so much amount of money in creating tasks, but there are no employees to help us quickly.. You have to get more human employees to make it fast track. Is there only Michael in support team?? If so, my suggestion is to spend some money in recruiting some employees to get our tickets answered in 24 hours. Here at we get a very fast reply from the support.. I am really impressed with .

I hope that if you really are from CF and really want to bring change to make CF better; you'll recommend this to CF for this Year.. Take it as a request from a Contributor..

Haha Michael is very real, and a very cool guy actually. Also he sits about 15 feet away from me. You know what I see him doing every time I look up? Typing on his computer answering tickets. It's easy to see things one way when you're exposed only to one side but the reality is that the massive volume of tickets that come in is not possible to get through every day. There simply aren't enough man hours. Let's do some math.

CrowdFlower gets about 800-900 tickets per day just from you contributors. In a month that's about 24000-27000 tickets. That means that the support team would need to get through ~106 tickets per hour. Assuming they do a thorough job and investigate each one, take corrective action and finally respond, they will need about 5 minutes per ticket, maybe less. That's only 12 tickets per hour per person.

Now that you see some numbers you can understand the amount of work the support team faces. They simply don't have the time to manually respond to everything which is the reason automated responses exist. This frees up the teams time to deal with the most urgent tickets.

In the end though I agree with you. I wish we could just expand and hire more people... If only it were that easy though hehe.

How can I PM you? I missed doing tasks. There will be less tickets if all of the tasks have fair corrections.

mclloyd86 wrote: How can I PM you? I missed doing tasks. There will be less tickets if all of the tasks have fair corrections.

I totally agree with you Mclloyd.. If the tasks were created properly and carefully with fairness, then who would send hundreds of tickets? Most members just neglect and won't bother to send tickets.. Otherwise the number would be in thousands not hundreds You have to get to the root of the problem, if it has to be solved...

TigerHeart wrote:

mclloyd86 wrote: How can I PM you? I missed doing tasks. There will be less tickets if all of the tasks have fair corrections.

I totally agree with you Mclloyd.. If the tasks were created properly and carefully with fairness, then who would send hundreds of tickets? Most members just neglect and won't bother to send tickets.. Otherwise the number would be in thousands not hundreds You have to get to the root of the problem, if it has to be solved...

absolutely sometimes I just ignore to submit tickets even there were a lot of unfair corrections and tasks. Then this is what I got. Lost my badge. Due to a lot of admin flagged whereas I completed mostly of that tasks before the implementation of the new rules. This is somehow embarrassing you worked hard to earn badges then just lost it in a glance.