END THE HARM OF MASS REJECTIONS

We, the undersigned, are asking the leaders of the Mturk platform (K. Chellapilla, C. Devers, S. Jones, N. Lindsey and M. Lease) to limit the harm caused by mass rejections. Mass rejections have affected many workers without any protection.

We call on the leaders to:

1. Limit the number of rejections the platform will allow to affect a worker’s approval rate when a requester rejects all work (i.e. 10 rejections per day would affect the approval rating, the others would, of course, still be rejected, but only the first 10 would affect the worker’s rating.)
2. Consult with the coalition of worker forums to problem-solve together to create solutions and improve Mechanical Turk for everyone.

Amazon Mechanical Turk is used by thousands of workers daily; all taking the chance of being mass rejected without protection. Turkopticon provides a space for workers to report these conditions, but we need more. Workers want to feel safe while working on the platform and have protection from mass rejections. Workers believe in rejections because unfortunately, there are bad workers, but good workers are getting unjustly hurt by them. Limiting the number of rejections that can affect a worker’s approval rating is something workers all agree will help everyone, including requesters. Requesters, especially new unrated ones, will get their work completed quicker because the fear of mass rejection will disappear.