I've been fascinated by the mturk concept since it launched. I sign in from time to time and complete tasks that look interesting.
Unfortunately, the service is flooded with $0.02 spam tasks (Register an account and post ad-copy on a specific forum etc). The highest paying single tasks routinely involve translation/transcription of Arabic.
The most I made from a single task was about $2.30 for 10 minutes, part of which was completion of a pre-screening task to demonstrate a certain level of English reading comprehension.
I used to do tasks now and then, but it feels like Amazon abandoned the platform. Early on there were more interesting tasks, engagement by the team, even improvements now and then. Now it's full of spam and scammers that Amazon doesn't seem to be doing anything about, and the platform doesn't seem to have had any improvements made since 2008 or so. To the extent it still works at all, it's because there's a subculture of "turkers" who use 3rd-party message boards and browser addons to navigate the mess.
The main thing that keeps me from engaging in mturk is finding tasks! I too like the concept, but I too do not speak Arabic and will not spam for pay.
There were some transcriptionist tasks that looked interesting, but the pre-screening task was looking for professional transcriptionist level performance.
Minimum qualifying WPM was like 70, and the acceptable error rate per minute was... zero? One? I'm not that good.
70 seems like a fairly reasonable rate to select for. If you've been touch typing for any measurable number of years I would think you'd at least be in the 70-80 range.
I don't know about you, but while I can type at 70WPM for typing tests, I generally can't sustain it for long periods of time, and my error rate increases.
Unfortunately, the service is flooded with $0.02 spam tasks (Register an account and post ad-copy on a specific forum etc). The highest paying single tasks routinely involve translation/transcription of Arabic.
The most I made from a single task was about $2.30 for 10 minutes, part of which was completion of a pre-screening task to demonstrate a certain level of English reading comprehension.