jamburgles' Tips for a Splendidly Efficient MTurk Experience:

jamburgles' Tips for a Splendidly Efficient MTurk Experience:

• Bookmark the HIT search with your preferred search conditions. (I use two conditions: [1] pay at least $0.25, and [2] already qualified). I put this link on my bookmark toolbar as a sort of nagging reminder, always in the foreground. Whatever the opposite of 'out of sight, out of mind' is, that's what this is for me.

• If you do put the HIT search link on your bookmark toolbar, this next tip is for you. Right click the bookmark and hit 'Properties' (if you're using Firefox). Type your mTurk worker ID in there. Now if a survey requires it, you can quickly access it -- just right click the bookmark on your toolbar, hit 'Properties' and copy the ID number whenever you need it. Chrome doesn't have bookmark Properties like Firefox, but you can just rename your bookmark to your mTurk worker ID instead. Right click the link on the toolbar and hit 'Edit'. Type your mTurk worker ID. Voila.

• Download TurkOpticon to quickly screen for shady requesters. It will place a button (an upside down triangle, blue if there are no reviews and red if there are reviews) next to each requester's name. Click it and the requester's rating/reviews will pop up. Comes in handy when a task seems too good to be true. (More often times than not, it is.) Make an account and post your own ratings/reviews if you want to to warn others about bad requesters or show support for good requesters. Or, y'know, don't.

• While you're at it, pick up this Greasemonkey script. (If you're using Firefox and don't have Greasemonkey installed already, download it here. It is awesome. If you're using Chrome, it's built into your browser so you're good to go.) This script lets you block/ignore requesters from your search results. It will place a little 'x' beside each requester's name. To block, just click the 'x'. This helps clean up your search results, and saves you time when you block scammers/requesters with poor ratings. Unfortunately, for reasons unbeknownst to me, this script doesn't work in Chrome. So it goes.

• Get yourself an AutoPager script/add-on. As you're nearing the end of your search results page, the script will load the next page for you right underneath. Less clicking, fuck yeah. (Efficiency, baby!) Here's one for Chrome and another for Firefox. Disclaimer: I haven't used either of these. If you have a better suggestion, lemme know and I will edit it into this post.

• This script will add a 'Pending Earnings' item to your dashboard. Note that the only time the script runs is when you click on the Pending Earnings link. So do that every time you want an update.

• This script will add a 'Today's Projected Earnings' item to your dashboard. It basically totals the earnings from all the HITs you've done for the day. Obviously it can't account for potential bonuses or rejections. But it's useful if you set a daily earnings goal for yourself. I aim to earn $1/day. [Thanks to iamtehinternet for mentioning this!]

• This script will display your account balance and worker ID in the header (screenshot here). Just a note: you don't have to double click the worker ID to select it -- just hover your cursor over it and hit Ctrl+C to copy.

• Bookmark /r/HITsWorthTurkingFor and check it when you feel so inclined. If you don't like viewing by 'what's hot' you can bookmark /r/HitsWorthTurkingFor/new instead. Whatever works for you.

• Try messing with the 'sort by' field in mTurk if you're having trouble finding good HITs. I tend to find some good ones when I sort by 'new'.

Welp, that's all I got off the top of my head. Hope that helps (: If you have anything else to add, leave a comment. Good luck and happy turkin'!