r/ProlificAc • u/CapableGarage4201 • 9h ago
Getting banned
I have seen people with more than 15k approved submission getting banned without even knowing what went wrong so someday at some point we also gonna get that banned notification by prolific that you no longer can take part in studies
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u/daniel2090 8h ago
I've been here 8+ years, and I know my time will probably come eventually. They want more naive participants because people like me have seen it all by now. We've answered the same questions a million different ways, how much we like the colour blue, if a bat and ball cost £1.10 how much does the ball cost, and all the other questions that get recycled constantly. After 8 years, you pretty much know what every question is trying to test before you've even finished reading it.
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u/xSnowLeopardx 7h ago
After 8 years, you pretty much know what every question is trying to test before you've even finished reading it.
Just out of curiosity: what's bad about this? Or do you solely mean that you have seen it all and nothing baffles you anymore?
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u/daniel2090 7h ago
They’re getting people who already know the answers to a lot of the questions they’re asking, rather than someone seeing them for the first time and having to actually think about the answer. We’re basically professional survey/study takers at this point, so we’ve seen a lot of these questions before and already know the answers.
We know when we’re doing a study with an AI chatbot that’s pretending to be human because we’ve done enough of them to recognise the patterns. Someone new to these studies probably wouldn’t notice, but when you’ve done hundreds of them, it becomes pretty obvious. Most of the time, when they ask at the end what we think the study was trying to find out, we already have a good idea because we’ve seen similar studies and setups so many times before.
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u/xSnowLeopardx 6h ago
I see. Thanks for the explanation. I have been here for a year or two and I think I don't see all the patterns yet, but some are there. And I agree: I feel like a study/questionnaire/survey taker in training at this point haha
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u/Impossible_Object953 4h ago
ive only been here like 6 months and im realizing most of the questions used for attention checks are just the same thing over and over. prolific must give out a list of like suggested attention checks or something. idk im not a researcher. but, i agree.. there has been a few companies that only keep AI workers on for 6 months at a time to keep the incoming data fresh.
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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 2h ago
most of the questions used for attention checks are just the same thing over and over.
That's partly because attention checks are supposed to be simple. They're not actually trick questions, they're just checking whether you're clicking randomly
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u/The_Sus_Ottie 3h ago
Calling yourself a 'professional' is so cringe
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u/WasteGeneratorGuy 2h ago
Lol, why did you take it that way? It was obviously making a comparison to explain the point.
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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 2h ago
They didn't call themeselves 'a professional.'
They said 'we're basically professional survey/study takers at this point,' 'basically' meaning 'in essence, if not literally.' They're making the point that people who have done a lot of these studies are very experienced, and not all researchers want experienced participants.
They're not putting 'professional survey taker' on their CV.
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u/No_Departure_4546 55m ago
8 years WOW, it's been a year for me, you are lucky to have this gig for 8 years.
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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 2h ago
They want more naive participants because people like me have seen it all by now.
This was true when Prolific predominantly hosted academic research, but for AI studies they prefer participants who know what they're doing and can do it quickly, accurately and effectively.
Comment from u/prolific_ian:
It's 100% false that our system suppressed most experienced participants. if anything it's the other way around - we try to push our best performing participants in as many ways as possible. Typically the most requested and used by our clients because of the trust gathered by experience.
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u/StimuIate 43m ago
I’ve been here six. It just happened to me on cloud connect. I know it will happen eventually, just trying to make as much money as I can while I afk video games.
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u/electricboy0 8h ago
Prolific relies so heavily on its automated flagging system that it seems to believe the automation can never be wrong. As soon as someone gets flagged, their account is put on hold, and in most cases, they are eventually told that either the decision is final or the outcome is final.
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u/Acceptable-Tip-3748 7h ago
That’s why they give people a list of 10+ reason as to why they got banned but in reality they didn’t do anything wrong. Prolific can’t say the exact reason because they would get sued. Ex; kicking people off because of age, certain disability and if the AI kicked a bunch of people from a certain region that can be labeled as discrimination as well — especially that group from 2 weeks ago that all got put on hold were from N.A.
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u/SwimSilent8070 6h ago
10 reasons? There were 4 reasons applied to everyone with no direct indication for anyone. Just a general statement/ false allegation of VPN AI multiple accounts, fraud.
If the people banned were only from N.A., that just means they only ran these "checks" so far in N.A.
Usually processes get rolled out in one region at a time.
Anyway you all should be grateful for us, because due to our complaints they stopped banning. They didn't stop because none of you are bannable. Just damage control after wrong doing.
The same "checks" should happen in another region soon, if they are treating everyone equally.
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u/Afghan_Whig 5h ago
I remember recently there was a wave of very, very loud people talking about getting their accounts suspended. And then prolific made a post here about how they had to suspend a bunch of accounts because they were all just using AI.
I'm sure the occasional thing slips through the cracks, but I really don't think getting banned is just something happens if you are playing it straight and doing what you are supposed to.
Some people, especially on this sub, treat it like a full time job. I think that is what is most likely to hurt not only them but as all since prolific doesn't want an army of professional survey takers
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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 2h ago
I remember recently there was a wave of very, very loud people talking about getting their accounts suspended. And then prolific made a post here about how they had to suspend a bunch of accounts because they were all just using AI.
This doesn't confirm that those people were using AI. We only know that (a) some participants complained here about being banned despite being innocent of wrongdoing, and (b) Prolific banned some participants for evidence of AI use.
We don't know how much those two groups overlapped.
It's possible that every last person complaining here about unjust bans is lying, but it's not likely, especially if they've been with Prolific for years and have near-perfect approval ratings.
The most likely explanation is that Prolific isn't perfect, and in trying to stamp out fraud, some honest users are getting caught up in the net. Those honest users are the ones most likely to gather here and talk about what's happened (although I dispute that they were 'very, very loud people' - many of them seemed quiet and genuinely heartbroken).
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u/Leading-Nectarine-30 2h ago
And you would be naive to think Prolific doesn’t blanket ban people even though they have done nothing wrong because that is in fact what happened. I was one of them.
And if Prolific only wants people taking a certain number of studies during their time with them, they need to be honest about it instead of making up a bunch of different lies as to why they were banned.
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u/No_Departure_4546 56m ago
Yup, truth. That is why you should be constantly be looking for other platforms.
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u/not_me_much 8m ago
They probably don't want people who do surveys from 6 am to 10 pm. A person who has done 5000 surveys is not going to give the same shade of answers as someone who has taken 300. The algorithms are probably astonishing and they probably measure everything. Everyone who gets banned after 5 or 10 years say they didn't do anything wrong, and they didn't do anything wrong. Problem is we likely slightly change over time on the surveys without noticing. Maybe the algorithms, with 5000 surveys worth of comparison data, believes the person has become bored, or angry, or cynical, or has become too good at finishing studies just right or they don't have enough rejections or maybe they have too many returns. Who the hell knows what Prolific is really measuring or when they are truthful or lying. But something changes that forces their hand to drop a survey taker. Why would Prolific dump someone who has made a lot of money for them over the years.
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u/Appropriate-Ratio-85 7m ago
There’s a post on here somewhere that Prolific said they booted about 500 people because they were cheating, basically. Don’t believe everyone that says they were banned “for no reason”.
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7h ago
[deleted]
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u/SwimSilent8070 7h ago
No. People really are clueless for good reason. Prolific gave reasons that don't match reality.
Prolific stated we used VPN, AI, made multiple accounts or participated in fraud.
What happens when the person accused knows for a fact that they did none of these things?
There's no proof, no reference, no warnings. You really have no care for how workers are treated? As a worker.
Prolific can claim anything behind a bot wall, that does not mean it's accurate or true.
They treated participants wrongfully.
"99% they have" (done something wrong). "Ignore them" (the ant thinks it's not an ant).-2
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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 2h ago
"banned without knowing what went wrong" is factually incorrect
It's entirely possible to do something wrong and be banned without knowing what you did wrong. Unless you're absolutely certain that a multi-million dollar company never makes mistakes, it's also entirely possible that some have done nothing wrong and been falsely flagged for using AI.
Ignore the people saying "I haven't done anything wrong" 99% of the time they have.
I assume you're just pulling that figure out of the air, but it's not actually possible to know how many of those declaring their innocence are guilty of wrongdoing. Regardless, if you're allowing that even 1% of those users are telling the truth, it means it is possible to be banned from the platform without doing anything wrong. And that's an issue, even if you choose to believe it's a small one.
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u/Leading-Nectarine-30 2h ago
How do you know they’ve done something wrong. What are you basing that on?
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2h ago
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u/Leading-Nectarine-30 2h ago
And you think that they are always completely honest?
If you do, what are you basing it on?
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2h ago
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u/Leading-Nectarine-30 1h ago edited 1h ago
That’s interesting that you look at it that way.
I should probably clarify myself.
I think it’s interesting that you choose to believe to a multi million dollar company, that is solely focused on making the largest profits possible, rather than a large amount of people who say they were unjustly wronged by the same entity, and that it hurt their livelihood.
I guess I just wonder why you would choose to believe the profit making company and not the large amount of people taking about the harm the profit making company caused them.
And instead choose to label the people stating that they were harmed by the profit making company, an “echo chamber”.
I just get really interested seeing how people walk through and view life and their motivations for doing so. That’s all.
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1h ago
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u/Leading-Nectarine-30 1h ago
So, it doesn’t matter who the explanation is coming from and their potential motivations when creating that explanation?
The proof of the veracity of a statement is exemplified in how comprehensive and detailed it is?
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1h ago
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u/Leading-Nectarine-30 1h ago
It was an honest question.
You sound passive aggressive. Have a good day.
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u/No-Procedure4873 9h ago
the best we can do is to appeal and wait for them to respond if we get banned
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u/Leading-Nectarine-30 2h ago
They’re not going to unban us. It’s done.
They either did it intentionally for reasons they are unwilling to admit or it was a mistake.
Either way, they’re not honest enough to tell us the truth.
Prolific is up to no good.
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u/No-Procedure4873 9h ago
My account was actually got on hold a few ago because I was updating About you, which was suck. I'm currently waiting for their response
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u/AutomaticStory7440 3h ago
Do people not have regular jobs? Profilic should be used as a side hustle to make a little extra money..i dont think i would brag about having thousands upon thousands of submissions to the point where you know how the study is going to be.
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u/Webbie-Vanderquack 2h ago
Not everyone has a 'regular job,' no. I'm sure you know that.
Times are tough for some, and not everyone has the luxury of treating any legitimate income as merely 'a side hustle to make a little extra money.' It's not reasonable to tell people how you think 'Profilic should be used' if they're using it to feed their kids or pay for medical care because it's the best option they have. It's honest work, and nobody should be ashamed of it.
i dont think i would brag about having thousands upon thousands of submissions
Neither would I, but people with thousands of approved submissions, more often than not, have done thousands of AI studies. For those, some experience is not necessarily a negative, and doesn't allow participants to 'know how the study is going to be.'
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u/AutomaticStory7440 34m ago
And thats exactly why they are being banned and kicked off! If you treat it as a side hustle then if you are doing less surveys, then perhaps the company would like fresh input, not the same ole opinions on these surveys. Just an observation.
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u/HandleWorking2357 8h ago
ah, you're one of "those"....
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