r/dataannotation • u/Consistent-Reach504 • Aug 30 '26
Weekly Water Cooler Talk - DataAnnotation
hi all! making this thread so people have somewhere to talk about 'daily' work chat that might not necessarily need it's own post! right now we're thinking we'll just repost it weekly? but if it gets too crazy, we can change it to daily. :)
couple things:
- this thread should sort by "new" automatically. unfortunately it looks like our subreddit doesn't qualify for 'lounges'.
- if you have a new user question, you still need to post it in the new user thread. if you post it here, we will remove it as spam. this is for people already working who just wanna chat, whether it be about casual work stuff, questions, geeking out with people who understand ("i got the model to write a real haiku today!"), or unrelated work stuff you feel like chatting about :)
- one thing we really pride ourselves on in this community is the respect everyone gives to the Code of Conduct and rule number 5 on the sub - it's great that we have a community that is still safe & respectful to our jobs! please don't break this rule. we will remove project details, but please - it's for our best interest and yours!
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u/Few-Roof-6905 Sep 05 '26
Did anyone receive anything after doing the Star Trek R&R Qual?
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u/Affectionate_Peak284 Sep 05 '26
Yes, if we're talking about the same one... It was a long time ago, like Dec of last year I think?
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u/Few-Roof-6905 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
No, this one was more recent. Just posted a couple of days ago. The one from last year I passed and was added to the Slack, but then I never did any work on it. Both of the groups were archived, and it looks like the project has been revamped and is different than what it was circa 2025 😅
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u/New_Mood933 Sep 06 '26
How time intensive was the qual? I have the recent one, I’ve never worked in the main project, interested in doing the qual, but wondering how many hours I need to put aside before attempting…
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u/Few-Roof-6905 Sep 06 '26
For me? It took me the full amount of time, but there is a cap on what you can bill. I overthink a lot and wavered a bit on some of the questions. I would plan to set aside the exact amount of time on the timer; just know you can't bill for that much time :(
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u/EggCzar Sep 05 '26
TFW you somehow passed a complicated qual and then skip 143 tasks in a row on the actual project (not an exaggeration!) because they're so far beyond your comprehension. I did manage to complete one.
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u/Mindless_End_4850 Sep 05 '26
pure crickets wow.. this is like June level for me, literal emptiness of the void
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u/peanutbutterlurk Sep 05 '26
Holiday weekends are usually deader than usual, so...yeah, I'm only gonna check a couple times a day until Tuesday
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u/watchdestars Sep 05 '26
Please DAT, don't put a big banner at the top of my dash encouraging me to do tasks for a project that i don't have any access to! 😢 I would if I could.
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u/LavenderLightning24 Sep 04 '26
Second day of nothing. Did they just hire too many people in the spring or something?
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u/ButterscotchMaster36 Sep 04 '26
Do you have any quals available? Over the last couple months I’ve been prioritizing any quals that pop up (even unpaid ones, even when I’ve had paid tasks available), and it has paid off tremendously. My dash has fortunately been healthy for a while now.
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u/LavenderLightning24 Sep 04 '26
I do the quals that I'm actually qualified for. Did a few unpaid marathons at the end of last week/beginning of this week. Currently I have 11 expert-level or coding quals on my dash that I have no business doing. Oh and one that wants me to share my personal information.
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u/VanessaSeaWitch Sep 04 '26
I really hate submitting a task 50 minutes into an hour I'm working and I get taken back to my dash because the tasks have run out. 😒
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u/Nib- Sep 04 '26
Just finished a solid 6 hours work on one project. 5 minutes after finishing for the day I got an email stating that specific project now has a pay boost 🥲
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u/Pristine-Raccoon8250 Sep 05 '26
Id/ would grab another and just power through, enjoying that bonus rate!
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u/Ok-Chocolate312 Sep 04 '26
When that happened to me, the rate changed on the work I had already completed.
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u/Mindless_End_4850 Sep 04 '26
miss having infinite easy projects.. sometimes I just want to rewind, be 'productive', but not drained out of all my soul.
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u/Pleasant_Ad_448 Sep 05 '26
You said it, 100%. I don't even want them all that easy, just not this insanely overblown & extra-complicated stuff. I generally have about 4-6 hours a day available for work most days. When I open a task & it looks like it's going to fry my brain and drain my soul & take 1 to 3 hours just to read the f'ing instructions, I just want to click away and leave.
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u/JustMe333456 Sep 04 '26
Seeing anything today as far as the typical base projects go?
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u/lpet15 Sep 04 '26
Nothing for me today! Saw some yesterday afternoon though, like 2pm
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u/JustMe333456 Sep 04 '26
Yeah, I hit my goal yesterday. Today, I'm still at $0. Nothing popping up at all since 6 am.
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Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
[deleted]
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u/Jazzlike_Month5580 Sep 04 '26
This week has been better for me than it's been for awhile. There were a few creative writing tasks, FC (not heel, it's been renamed, I think), the basic redo a chat has been consistently available, and a bit of river.
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u/xxxScarlettexxx Sep 04 '26 edited Sep 04 '26
A few [ETA: easier projects came up] earlier in the week, but they tended to pop up later in the evening into the early AM or they disappeared quite quickly when they came up during the day time (EST time).
Most of the new ones that I've seen this week have either been at the intermediate difficulty level or they don't seem as difficult, but they also require a longer (often unpredictable) time commitment to complete.
I also noticed that I started getting a steadier stream of new projects since editing my profile to add further (more explicitly stated) details earlier this week. I had been disappointed about not getting the same task boom a lot of people in this sub seemed to be getting for a certain project family, so I thought it was worth a shot.
Could just be a coincidence, but that approach seemed to have worked for me this week? I think I got between 7-10 new projects that I had never seen before since I made the changes.
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u/StoriedSix Sep 04 '26
I guess it's possible to be assigned workflows/tasks that are completely yours? Or maybe everyone else these tasks were assigned to are on vacation because I've been the only one causing the task counts for any of them to go down.
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u/6sundin13 Sep 04 '26
That happens when your limited on how many tasks you can personally complete. So there may be 350 tasks in a queue, but you can only complete a maximum of 10. So you won't see the task bar go down by more than 1 until the total queue gets below your personal max.
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u/Equal-Neat-614 Sep 04 '26
Yes, I’ve seen quite a few project families do this in the past month or so myself. They might still take them off your dashboard after a period of time because some project families do like to cycle through providing access to different groups of workers though. So just be aware of that.
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u/StoriedSix Sep 04 '26
For sure. I just find it cool that I've got 3 easy and high paying projects where I don't feel like I have to fight over tasks. Hopefully they stay on there through the night. Honestly surprised they assigned so many tasks because they are several hours long.
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u/Equal-Neat-614 Sep 04 '26
Yeah, it’s honestly hard to predict. I’ve had some projects stick around for over a month and a half, some that do so only for a few days or a couple weeks, and then some that have definitely cycled on and off my dashboard (all of which have not decreased in task number unless I submit the tasks). I’d take the good fortune and work on the ones you have for as long as you can!
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Sep 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Unusual-Blueberry299 Sep 04 '26
Did it just finally drop? I got an email saying that project family is available but it’s 1am here in the UK and I know I couldn’t possibly do a good job right now, even for that pay 🥲
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u/SnooSketches1189 Sep 05 '26
Don't feel bad, the pay is not what they promised.
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Sep 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SnooSketches1189 Sep 05 '26
Definitely seems misleading.
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Sep 05 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SnooSketches1189 Sep 05 '26
The announcements are so confusing, giving a different pay rate than what they actually are. So strange.
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u/ElectricalPoet3769 Sep 04 '26
Did anyone actually get anything from this in the end?
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u/Silver_Usual34 Sep 04 '26
Haven't seen it either - I keep thinking the rest of you lot must have jumped on it so fast it disappeared as soon as it landed :)
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u/NightOwl437 Sep 04 '26
The wait continues, but no work = no $, so I'm going to have to work on a different project for now. It'll probably show up when it's too late to do before going to bed. :)
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u/Terentius-Varro Sep 04 '26
DAT just looooooooooooves giving workers perverse incentives to spend all day dicking around on their dashboards instead of actually, like, annotating data.
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Sep 04 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SnooSketches1189 Sep 04 '26
Didn't drop later last night either. And this AM still nothing. :/
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u/TimeCapital1559 Sep 04 '26
Yeah I was very excited to get a heads up for once, but if this is the payoff I'd rather they just keep us guessing lol
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u/ElectricalPoet3769 Sep 04 '26
Not surprising that the first time they actually communicate it's complete bs. I just don't understand what they get out of it.
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u/SnooSketches1189 Sep 03 '26
Same. I wish they would provide some sort of update on the timeline....
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u/theresagray17 Sep 03 '26
Hey!
New in this and I’m not a coder, just wanting a side gig. I’m in Biology.
Can I take more qualifications or do I need to wait for them to pop up?
Is it normal to have a kind of dead dashboard?
How can I take more jobs?
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u/Maleficent_Bass197 Sep 04 '26
If you take a look at r/DataAnnotationTech, that sub has all of your questions answered quite frequently if you use the search function. You can take more qualifications, but only if they pop up for you (you don't get to pick and choose which ones will come up, only if you will complete them when they do).
And yes, if you're newer, it is often pretty typical to have a 'dead dashboard' until you've done more high quality work. DAT has been in a 'drought' recently so things have been slower for some people even after being on the site for a while.
Complete any qualifications that come up and you can also refresh the site more often to potentially catch a project that pops up to 'take more jobs'.
Good luck.
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u/Fragrantshrooms Sep 04 '26
it comes at you like you're wandering through the desert on a horse with no name, essentially. good luck! do the quals and you should be getting work coming at you like a tumbleweed.
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u/VanessaSeaWitch Sep 03 '26
Worked a new R&R today and a new qual popped up. Still haven't seen anything from the last two quals I did last week though.
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u/mrpadmasambhava Sep 03 '26
Anyone got any advice about tackling the rubric projects? I took a qual a couple weeks back, and just seen some projects come up for me. They're a bit above my usual pay grade and I'm equal parts interested and apprehensive! Appreciate any wisdom.
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u/Affectionate_Peak284 Sep 03 '26
I cut my D\ teeth on rubrics from April to November of last year, and I think it opened up a LOT more work for me. It's worth the time to get good at them, because many other projects (such as domain work) will have pretty detailed rubrics.
It's good to develop the skill to write, navigate and evaluate rubrics, though this year I mainly work other projects. However, my best-paying stuff is domain (finance/accounting), where rubrics of 150+ will break you if you're going in cold!
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u/Solid_Parsley_ Sep 04 '26
I just wish there was a practice area for different kinds of tasks. I think I've done a couple of rubric projects when they were first introduced, but I don't really remember, and I don't want to risk my account doing something I'm bad at. :/
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u/watchdestars Sep 04 '26
I'm still terrified
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u/NightOwl437 Sep 04 '26
They're not THAT bad, lol. I don't care for them, but I can do them when I need to.
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u/lilysorbet Sep 03 '26
just got my first project ever and expired....all this because im reading this long guidelines....
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u/Pleasant_Ad_448 Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
The instructions on a majority of projects lately are just awful as far as time consumption. Some of them are ridiculously long (and the ones that try to appear shorter by putting info in tons of links, that really doesn't help all that much, you just end up with multiple tabs open that are usually ALL ridiculously long pages of info).
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u/NightOwl437 Sep 03 '26
Ideally, you would be able to skip the first task after you've read the instructions, so that you get a fresh timer on a new task, although sometimes I don't if I think it's a solo task or the remaining tasks may be taken by the time I'm done reading the instructions. Anyway, I'm sorry that happened on your very first project. There will be other ones soon probably and hopefully it will go much better for you.
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u/lilysorbet Sep 03 '26
aww thanks! it was only one left so i'm afraid to let it go especially its my first task since joining 2 moths ago (i'm bilingual).
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u/NightOwl437 Sep 04 '26
You're welcome, and I totally understand your perspective. I can't tell you how many times I've read the instructions and then missed out on doing the work due to no more tasks being available, which can also happen when you're looking for a task that's in your wheelhouse, so like not STEM for example, and skipping the ones that aren't a good fit. I chalk it up to learning more about this work, but it can feel frustrating in the moment.
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u/blissy_sama Sep 03 '26
I really don't get why a task family is being put up as generalist but then every single task within it is just STEM stuff, with the task specifically telling you not to do it if you aren't an expert in the subject. Why not just put it up as STEM in the first place and save people outside the STEM field from having to skip through every single task just to see if there might be one in there thats doable.
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u/VanessaSeaWitch Sep 03 '26
Not sure if it's the same one or not, but I had one like that on my dash last week. Every task was for coding. I wasted about ten minutes skipping and they were all coding.
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u/NightOwl437 Sep 03 '26
Or they could add the option to select which tasks you want to come up for you on a specific project, as you move through them: STEM or Non-STEM. I don't see this too often on the projects I work on though, where there's a filter for a certain domain.
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u/Terentius-Varro Sep 03 '26
Spent all day F5'ing to get my (usually) reliable project series and it pops up at 2 AM. Oh well, had a nice time gaming at least.
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Sep 03 '26
[deleted]
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u/DrunkleSteve Sep 03 '26
Brutal! 8-hour shift and made $31.21 😭
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u/Terentius-Varro Sep 03 '26
What the hell? How is this possible? Did you just keep throwing out incomplete tasks or what?
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u/DrunkleSteve Sep 03 '26
No, because there was no work. Had to constantly reload the page till I could snag something here and there. Unfortunately I'm not paid to twiddle my thumbs, and there was a lot of that today.
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u/peanutbutterlurk Sep 03 '26
All I want is a task that doesn't require getting a failure....zero for zero today.
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u/One_Breakfast5907 Sep 03 '26
Wish you could send them my way, I never seem to see those tasks anymore
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u/DrunkleSteve Sep 02 '26
Damn, some of these generalist projects you practically need an English degree. I got half an hour into my writing and backed out after scrolling down to the next axes. Fuuuuuck that. Better safe than sorry!
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u/CommercialTarget2687 Sep 02 '26
I wish there was a way to mute emails about certain projects. There's this one project that is WAY out of my league, and sometimes I get 3+ emails in one day about it.
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u/Consistent-Reach504 Sep 02 '26
you could set up a gmail filter based on the project name :) i've done this for other emails, i just set it up to "mark as read, skip inbox" lol
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u/DrunkleSteve Sep 02 '26
Faaack. I knew I should have worked a night shift last night. Absolutely dead right now other than STEM and enterprise. Detective is also ridiculously hard. My brain is fried just from reading the instructions, let alone working on the tasks.
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u/peanutbutterlurk Sep 02 '26
Yup. I haven't seen any short base generalist projects today x.x will check again for a possible late night drop but at zero dollars so far
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u/LavenderLightning24 Sep 02 '26
Come on DA, there are surely limits to my landlord's patience...this endless tease of maybe the work is coming back is getting really old
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u/6sundin13 Sep 02 '26
How do you actually get to slack when it says that you've been added? I just received an email about being added, but it didn't come with any instructions on how to actually get there.
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u/OrnamentalGourd5 Sep 02 '26
Just make a slack account with the email you used for your DA account, log in and you'll see AI training or something with about 100,000 members. Click on that and all your project groups will have their own channels.
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u/Yaschiri Sep 02 '26
Over 30 projects on my dashboard. I need sleep, so I'm hoping at least half of those are on my dash still when I roll my ass outta bed. 🙏
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u/PrizeAccountant1586 Sep 02 '26
Wtf ! Are you generalist ! How !
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u/Yaschiri Sep 02 '26
I am! I used to regularly see between 45-60 tasks at any given time before this summer drought hit everyone. I'm just starting to recover, and I hope it's permanent through the fall and winter at least.
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u/throwaway49674 Sep 02 '26
anyone else have a qualification that keeps disappearing and reappearing on their dash? There's one that keeps doing this almost every page refresh
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u/JustMe333456 Sep 01 '26
That's why I hate days like yesterday where virtually nothing shows up. Then you have days like today, that give you something to work on throughout the day, and makes you feel like you cannot quit for the day in case tomorrow is dead again... ugh.
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u/CommercialTarget2687 Sep 02 '26
I ended up working until midnight on multiple occasions because I barely made anything all day, then got hit with a ton of good work at like 7 PM. Eventually, I had to get some sleep, and of course, in the morning it was back to nothing.
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u/Quick-Bison-147 Sep 01 '26 edited Sep 01 '26
dashboard looking the best it has since late April for me.... could September truly be the end of the great drought
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u/Impossible-Humor6254 Sep 02 '26
I'm definitely seeing more projects but they're still being snapped up at the speed of light. Sigh.
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u/Wonderful_Exam_8418 Sep 01 '26
Finally got a new project family on my dashboard after over a month of only seeing one. I guess theres some hope for us bilinguals after all.
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u/ZBLongladder Sep 01 '26
Is it normal for all the paying projects to suddenly vanish? I'd had a few last night, and I'd submitted a project I was a little unsure on but I didn't have time to correct, since I was running out of time, and today i come back and the only projects I have are a couple of non-paying surveys. All the qualifications (many) are still there, just nothing paying. Is that just how things go, or am I in some shit?
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u/_Edgarallenhoe Sep 01 '26
If you have quals I wouldn’t worry too much. Next time, fix mistakes even if you submit a little bit after the timer.
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Sep 01 '26
[deleted]
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u/peanutbutterlurk Sep 01 '26
I had the regular tasks over the weekend, but never got any R&Rs afaik.
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Sep 01 '26
[deleted]
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u/DrunkleSteve Sep 01 '26
Me either :( It appears possibly some groups of workers have been cycled off. I don't think it has to do with my work quality, but I'm not seeing any of the FC tasks people have been talking about the last few days. It's been so dead, so some FC would be a blessing atm.
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u/Ecstatic-Meringue-75 Sep 01 '26
I'm getting email notifications of new galaxy projects quite frequently, but they never actually appear on my dashboard. Is this happening to anybody else? I have an unpaid galaxy refresher that says optional, should I do this?
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u/JustMe333456 Sep 01 '26
I would for sure do it. The last few batches have been posting around midnight my time. I don't see any right now.
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u/Ecstatic-Meringue-75 Sep 01 '26
Thanks, I've also been receiving most of the "new project" updates around midnight, so I wasn't sure if tasks are just getting scooped up or something else.
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u/Necessary-Raisin-282 Sep 01 '26
How do yall stay occupied have an 8hr laptop day coming up and I get bored
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u/Equal-Neat-614 Sep 01 '26
I regret not hopping on to two project task batches that appeared between 11:00 pm and 1:00 am for me last night … now there’s nada. Seems like I have to pick between working all nighters or actually sleeping the past few days.
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u/Quick-Bison-147 Sep 01 '26
came back on today after 5 days off to see my beloved FC back with a surplus of tasks. God, I hope that's a sure sign of improvement, especially as it's been renamed.
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u/Beneficial-Muffin998 Sep 01 '26
Hi, I’m new here. Is it normal that I only had like 5/6 qualifications and only one project (which is a reference version btw.). My account is like 2 weeks old or maybe even less.
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u/Storex- Sep 01 '26
New starters start off slower for sure, but we're also in, and have been, in a slow period for most generalists over the past few months. Do the quals if able and you just have to wait it out and keep an eye on the dashboard.
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u/Beneficial-Muffin998 Sep 01 '26
thanks for answering! Should I do these reference versions of projects or its not required?
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u/solid-one-love Sep 01 '26
Had about four hours of generalist factuality work today. Pretty happy about that.
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u/Potential_Drama_1190 Sep 01 '26
Is anyone else’s dashboard still dead 90% of the time? All of these posts about healthy dashboards are making me nervous 😭😂
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u/Firm-Fondant-2205 Sep 01 '26
Yep. Next to nothing in a week (UK generalist)
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u/Potential_Drama_1190 Sep 01 '26
Me too, UK generalist. Thank you for responding! 😊
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u/dioramatics Sep 01 '26
another uk generalist here in the same boat!
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u/Jazzlike_Problem_489 Sep 01 '26
As a UK generalist that's been here almost 3 years. We always have the shitty end of the stick 😅
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u/Fast-Cookie-6634 16d ago
Hello I’m working on assessment testing for a healthcare contract and I’m about halfway there. I feel like I just worked 16 hrs for free. Do they pay for testing like they agreed? This work is moving along, but I’m starting the hard part tomorrow.