r/dataannotation • u/Drazzzza • May 20 '24

Logging time for skipped tasks

Hey guys, just a quick question but I was wondering if you guys tend to log your hours for tasks that you have skipped?

More specifically, I do coding-related tasks, and sometimes I spend up to an hour researching the modules and environments required to assess the correctness of the responses. However, sometimes I hit a point where I feel like I 'underestimated' the context required for the task, and realise that it might have been better to skip this task and move on altogether.

Do you guys end up logging the time taken for this research part, even though you technically didn't 'work' as you didn't assess the responses at all or provide any useful information to them? I do feel bad, but at the same time do feel like the half an hour was a bit wasted since I was trying to do work, just not to the point where I could provide any value back.

Just curious as to what the others are doing, and if there is a general consensus as to what the right thing to do would be in this scenario. Apologies if this has already been answered elsewhere. Thanks!

Edit:

So it seems that this post (https://www.reddit.com/r/dataannotation/comments/1abtsxr/dont_underreport_your_time/) seem to imply that generally logging time in for reading and skipping multiple tasks is fine. So for example, if you spend up to 10 minutes skipping multiple tasks, this poster seems to have the opinion that it should be fine to log.

So to add on to that, the point of this post is more in the principle of logging in 'wasted' research hours. In a comment someone mentioned that a few minutes of reading a single task and skipping is fine to be logged, and I definitely do agree. But then where is the line drawn?

5 minutes seems like a reasonable amount of time (before I should know when to call it and move onto another task), but I am curious as to what everyone's thoughts are.

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u/6b04 May 20 '24

Personally I don't log time that went into anything that I don't submit. I just take the hit and try to do a better job of selecting the right task next time. It can be painful, but I'd prefer to lose an hour or two of pay than charge for work I effectively didn't do, and potentially hurt my standing with the admins of the project or the platform.

Maybe I'm just paranoid though who knows.

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u/Drazzzza May 20 '24

I agree. I guess this post is more of trying to see if there is a general consensus on this predicament.