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How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your site's reputation
Wed 29 Feb 2012 01:47:41 PM UTC — annaleenaHave you heard of the new buzzword in outsourcing: microwork? It’s the act of outsourcing pieces of work over the Internet to those who need jobs, often to disadvantaged youth, women, and refugees in developing countries.
In a few years, microwork is predicted to turn into a global phenomenon. It supports sustainable development and helps people find their income in challenging circumstances. The idea is to empower the poor: “give jobs, not aid”.
Outsourced tasks vary a lot. Microwork was used, for example, in crisis communication during the earthquake catastrophe in Haiti for translating emergency text messages. Other examples are creating digital handicrafts, such as online greeting cards, Google map analysis, and transcriptions.1 In one of the most popular microwork services, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, typical tasks are short translations and finding information on the web.
Unfortunately, microwork can also be misused to manipulate surveys and polls, or to spam. Some use it for buying likes on Facebook and followers on Twitter. Over the years, we have witnessed several cases where microworkers were hired to rate sites in WOT.
Our tip to site owners who are planning on doing this: Hiring microworkers to rate your website does not improve your site’s reputation.
Why? The WOT rating system is designed to detect manipulation attempts: Each user has to earn the system’s trust before it gives weight to their ratings. The rating behavior in these cases is highly unusual and easy to detect.
An example of a microwork assignment recruiting people to rate a site. Click to enlarge.
WOT tells how much users trust your site, and the best way to improve the rating is to find out what causes the lack of trust and solve the issues. Below some tips that you might find useful.
Tips to improve your site's reputation
- You can reply to comments on the scorecard and request a review on our forum by claiming the site. You can claim your site by following the "Click here if you own this site" link on your site's scorecard and completing the verification process.
- Contact the users who left comments through their boards and ask them to review or explain their comment and rating. Try to find out if there are some issues to be solved.
- Ask you friends and customers to rate your site. This means people who really know that your site can be trusted, not people who are paid to do so.
1To learn how microwork can be used well, read this inspiring article Microwork is the new, new buzzword in global outsourcing.
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
Virtual sweatshops for societies who consume by consuming others and started with a good intention, to give them work first
We must give them skills, but this good intention is hurting more than it can help
I rather give them aid, until they are empowered to earn a fair wage, for a job and that can only can come from an education or trade training than give them pennies to say: "I like" or Tweet about a product that they will never able to afford
Corporations cannot be that stupid, just because someone says I like it, does not mean that a purchase will take place or that the information is accurate, take for example WOT as it was mentioned in the article
Trying to manipulate the score card, by paying others who have never had seeing or heard about the company is unethical and it will back fire, as real users will distrust a site that was liked
Amazon was my biggest disappointment, I have always trusted their good judgment, but I do not longer feel that way
I found an irony that Adam Smith, was right after all this years
It is not by augmenting the capital of the country, but by rendering a greater part of that capital active and productive than would otherwise be so, that the most judicious operations of banking can increase the industry of the country.
Adam Smith
Teaching them a skill or opening schools for the population of poor countries , so they can work and not live out of small change , should be the way , to eradicate the poverty that drive people to work for almost nothing
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
And if you don't receive comments and you only have a low rating, but you don't have any clue on who did give you low ratings?
When a web is hacked (any web can be hacked as Nasa website has been hacked or FBI website), you get low reputation very fast, but it's too difficult to recover the reputation.
You should have a method to reset reputation and then restar, not removing the history maybe, but restarting in low green when the owner acknowledges the problem and has solved (or tried to solve) the issues.
I agree what Adam mentions about it's not ethic to pay people to improve rating.
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
And if you don't receive comments and you only have a low rating, but you don't have any clue on who did give you low ratings?
The identity of the people who rated your site doesn't really matter. As long as they're playing by the rules, everyone has the right to rate a website.
If your site has been hacked and the reputation still remains poor, you can post a review request on the forum, which is typically solve the issue.
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
And if you don't receive comments and you only have a low rating, but you don't have any clue on who did give you low ratings?
When a web is hacked (any web can be hacked as Nasa website has been hacked or FBI website), you get low reputation very fast, but it's too difficult to recover the reputation.
You should have a method to reset reputation and then restar, not removing the history maybe, but restarting in low green when the owner acknowledges the problem and has solved (or tried to solve) the issues.
I agree what Adam mentions about it's not ethic to pay people to improve rating.
Your post have nothing to do with the article in this blog !
https://www.mywot.com/en/forum/4908-forum-guidelin...
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
Your post have nothing to do with the article in this blog !
https://www.mywot.com/en/forum/4908-forum-guidelin...
I beg to differ. His reply was on topic and relevent.
Using an obese PC. I offer it a bit and it takes a megabyte.
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
I wonder if the Chinese "50-cent army" would qualify as microwork.
For those who don't know, the "50-cent army" are tasked with finding anything to do with China on the Internet, especially adverse opinions, and then reporting them to the Chinese authorities who then decide if the website, IP, et al should be banned viewing for Chinese Internet users. The "50-cent army" gets its nickname from the amount they are paid for each discovery and report.
Edit: See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7783640.stm
~Music is not just for the Masses~
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
My reputation has been hijacked by your program and now you want me to post your app on my site, and I have to get friends to click positive ratings just to return my rating to something near normal?
Basically your app does not determine a site's reputation or trustworthiness, it just gives people who hate your opinions a chance to devalue your site, and then I have to join your program and add your app to my site and ask my friends to revalue my site. Great for you, more work for me. You guys are basically blackbmailing me to get with YOUR ratings program.
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
My reputation has been hijacked by your program and now you want me to post your app on my site, and I have to get friends to click positive ratings just to return my rating to something near normal?
Basically your app does not determine a site's reputation or trustworthiness, it just gives people who hate your opinions a chance to devalue your site, and then I have to join your program and add your app to my site and ask my friends to revalue my site. Great for you, more work for me. You guys are basically blackbmailing me to get with YOUR ratings program.
Nonsense. Read:
http://www.mywot.com/en/faq/website/reputation-pro...
If you think your site has been misrated request a review here:
http://www.mywot.com/forum/request_review
I like pancakes!
RE: How microwork helps the world, but does not improve your sit
The microwork issue as presented here is sad because it can tarnish an otherwise nice concept.
Unfortunately, as long as there are rules there will be those who try to 'work the system' and get around them. Paying for 'trust' is wrong on so many levels.
But microwork, like the successful microloan programs that came before them, could be a benefit to millions who need access to better jobs. There needs to be a way to ensure that the work is credible.
Could this be a new task for WOT?
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