Announcement - HITsWorthTurkingFor June Awards

Greetings Turking Redditors!

Another month has passed and our small community is no longer very small. What started as an uneventful June blew up rather unexpectedly with a veritable fountain of fresh blood. This lead to some challenges and growing pains, but we appear to have come out the other side stronger than where we started.

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###First, a couple of Announcements:

Gosh, That Got Big Quick..

Recently, an innocent comment on a popular Ask Reddit post opened the flood gates of the sub to a sea of enthusiastic new turkers. This has had both positive and negative consequences. On the down side, posted HITs are getting tapped out at a faster pace, it's taken time for folks to get used to the sub's unique etiquette, and everyone's nerves have gotten a bit frayed by the addition of well meaning but inexperienced new members. On the plus side, there's been an increase in the number of HITs posted (most of which are now as worth turking for as before), the extra revenue to be earned by posting has risen and the community pool has quadrupled in size.

Things are now leveling out as those who find turking worthwhile stay and contribute and others realize how many pictures of cats they've missed out on seeing while filling in bubbles (¿por qué no los dos?). Keep in mind that while our numbers have certainly increased, the displayed subscribers doesn't subtract those who unsubscribe and is not an accurate indication of sub users.

Thank you to all new users that have weathered the downvotes and worked out how to contribute and to all the old ones for their patience. Special thanks to members such as emisan, golfguy671, fireflygirlie and everyone else who've taken the time to answer questions and offer advice. (Apologies to the many others I've forgotten to mention by name).

Community Survey

Three months ago, we ran a survey of our then new subreddit to solicit feedback on how you'd like to see the community run. We promised that when we hit 6,000 subscribers, we'd do it again. It was a tad unexpected to see our numbers grow by that figure in just two days, but it only increases the need to evaluate how the sub is working. Aarinfel has collated the most commonly voiced suggestions and concerns into a brief survey. In the lead up to it, we'll be posting one discussion thread every day on the topic of each of its larger questions. Once the survey has been posted, it will run for one week.

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###The Awards:

This month we have raised a whopping total of $140.66 for the community pool. Of that:

• $80.62 from Adfocus (including $10.96 from links directly posted by m1327)

• $47.04 from Adfly

• $13.00 from direct contributions and rewards left riding in the pool from last month

The pool has been divided between the ten highest voted HITs and the subreddit's top five contributors (courtesy of BBoe's Subreddit Stats). In order for the payouts system to be more sustainable and to prevent the mods needing to cover them using their own money and accounts, we have begun setting aside 20% of the pool as a reserve until we have built up a cushion. The mods are again forfeiting a percentage of the pool, but that may change next month dependent on survey feedback.

As we've far exceeded the $36 minimum payouts, all of the rewards winners are receiving a percentage of the total pool instead of the minimums. Details of how the awards and reserve break down can be found in the "Split Pool (June 2012)" sheet here. Further details can be found in the FAQ.

Given the substantial size of the pool this month, there will unfortunately be a 10-14 day delay before payments while we wait for the link monetizer income to clear. Once we've built up a reserve, the awards will once again be issued more promptly.

And now, The Winners!

Top Contributors by Total Submission Karma

Name	Score	Payout
fireflygirlie:	1870	$22.11
soupisalwaysrelevant:	629	$11.06
golfguy671:	590	$5.53
jmannreview:	578	$5.53
iam911:	443	$3.32

Highest Voted HITs

Name	Score	Payout
soupisalwaysrelevant	176	$22.11
iam911	86	$11.06
mogwai316	69	$5.53
TheN33k	64	$5.53
Amandurp	63	$2.21
turkmagurk	61	$2.21
fahsky	59	$1.11
arcticshadow	57	$1.11
Rachmaninoff	50	$1.11
Emazinng	48	$1.11

Discussion threads have been excluded from both categories. Compiled at 22:00 AKST, June 30th

Finally, to those who "won" in June, to claim your award, you will receive a message from the mods that will contain a link to a HIT on mTurk created specifically for you. You'll also be given a unique passcode that you must enter on the HIT to receive your award. The HIT will expire 2 weeks after you receive the message. If you do not accept it within those 2 weeks, it will be forfeited and added back to the pool. Sorry, no exceptions. Please also be aware that the contributors of the top 3 highest rated posts for June will not be eligible for the top 3 award spots in July.

Thanks all around and keep on turkin',

The mods