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kazmeyer posted:That, and the fact that he hasn't commented about it (but did log in to post in the PPACA thread) leads me to believe that we probably got screwed. That is exactly what I'm thinking. It looks like nobody's heard from him. Pretty ballsy to not make a parachute account, at least.
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Jun 29, 2012 02:22
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I did, but I haven't done any work on it tbh. I wanted to make sure the money was coming through. So at least there's that.
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Jun 29, 2012 02:39
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For whatever it is worth, he just emailed me to let me know that I am, in fact, on the list of people to be paid. No further details, but he hasn't totally cut contact.
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Jun 29, 2012 05:16
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I went ahead and sent in a report, just to spur things along. Zeta Taskforce is handling it, so feel free to PM with details of your communications and what's owed. Hopefully this will get things moving in the right direction.
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Jun 29, 2012 05:19
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Sorry to go an extra two days without personally contacting everyone. I'll be doing that in a bit. Reminder: I don't have ultimate access to the bank, or to my partner's account. Despite all that, I've paid for a lot of you guys out of my own pocket in the past and spent the last two days trying to continue to do so, because I thought "I'm paying people" was a more useful update than "Well, sorry yet again guys, but..." Anyway. I'm giving everyone the option of getting their work back instead of waiting 2 days or 2 weeks or however long this process takes. I'm emailing customers, instructing them to take previously written stuff down, and replacing it with my own work free of charge. That doesn't pay for anyone's time, but it does allow you to market your stuff and get paid for it in a timely manner. In the meantime, I will keep plugging away at this issue. There's no point in me relaying anyone's word over the situation since they clearly can't be relyed on. Nobody likes being thought of as a con-artist, but the only resource I've got to fix the situation is my time, and I plan on using it the best I can. I will email everybody personally in a couple hours after I've had some sleep. (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 29, 2012 09:38
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kazmeyer posted:I went ahead and sent in a report, just to spur things along. Zeta Taskforce is handling it, so feel free to PM with details of your communications and what's owed. Hopefully this will get things moving in the right direction. Yeah, zeta's on it. For future reference please immediately report anyone soliciting stuff on here. Anything involving goon to goon money should be in SA mart.
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Jun 29, 2012 15:07
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Zeta sent me a pm asking me what was going on. I hope he doesn't mind me making that a public post because I'd like everyone to be on the same page. About two months ago I posted looking for help clearing a really big backlog in a website-making service. Everybody chipped in, things were great, everybody got paid promptly for about a 2 month period. We hired a couple people from other places, and we paid out about 50,000 a month. Late May, the bank froze the owner's account and placed it "under review". Obviously that froze him out of his personal finances, me out of one of my major gigs, and a bunch of the guys here out of whatever they were working on. I guess the idea is to stop you from doing business for a couple of months and if you're still in business after that, you're doing something illegal? Total outstanding amount is around 1500 dollars owed to seven or eight different people. I can't put a date on when it is getting resolved - the bank reopened the account on Monday, but they still aren't letting anything go out. Maybe we get the go ahead...tomorrow, maybe longer. I'm not going to bother passing along anybody's estimates anymore. What I'm doing now is selling the stuff that is off pretty good quality along with a bunch of my own work and paying out of that, and/or removing peoples material (if posted) and replacing it with my own stuff. You don't get paid, but you also don't have to worry about being defrauded. (used an email address with my real name on a forum I've been a member of for years and paid out thousands of dollars... kind of unlikely? maybe?) Anyway, take what you wrote and sell it/build your portfolio/whatever. Like I said, I'm pretty easy to contact, but if I don't get to you right away its because I'm really busy! edit: eggplants, that's certainly a new rule to me. isn't there a post a job opening thread for this exact purpose? Monarchy fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Jun 29, 2012 |
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Jun 29, 2012 18:59
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Monarchy posted:(used an email address with my real name on a forum I've been a member of for years and paid out thousands of dollars... kind of unlikely? maybe?) I was part of the first wave of people to take up this offer, and I voluntarily spoke up when it came up again that I'd had good experiences. Since then, I've received PMs about all of this. Just to be clear: I have no more connection to this venture than anyone else who heard about it hear and handed in writing. Obviously I can only speak for myself, but when the bank apparently decided to freeze the account or whatever, I never suspected any kind of ill intent. I didn't get a ton of email updates, but I just simply looked at $currently outstanding/$previously received, and it was pretty clear that if this was malicious, it was the stupidest scam ever. "Hahaha, I suckered you in by paying out thousands and now will rip you off for hundreds!" Sounds a lot more like someone dealing with a mess than someone scamming a quick buck, to me. For the people who this is the first writing they sent in, I can understand how it might look different. And I can certainly understand people being impatient. But IMO this would be the worse scam ever, if he was trying to scam people.
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Jun 29, 2012 20:15
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Scamming and getting over your head in a legitimate enterprise and deciding to cut and run really aren't all that different from the worker's perspective; either way we don't get paid for our work. To make it clear, I didn't report Monarchy with the intent of getting him banned for scamming. If he makes good, all's good; he's actually not the flakiest client I've ever had. And I believe this is a legitimate clusterfuck on his end, but you have to understand how "everyone's getting paid tomorrow"/<crickets> looks. I just wanted there to be some kind of official pressure towards actually resolving this other than a bunch of emails and PMs that were largely going unanswered. (Incidentally, my very first transcription client -- the one who still owes me upwards of $1500 -- paid me north of five grand before unexplained payment issues started cropping up. She's the reason I advise people not to work without W-9s and contracts, and she's the reason I was waiting for the first batch of work to pay out before I took a second one.) (Related note: If you ever see an ad for Winged Words Transcription or Linda Britt wanting to hire transcribers, run the gently caress away.)
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Jun 29, 2012 20:31
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kazmeyer posted:(Related note: If you ever see an ad for Winged Words Transcription or Linda Britt wanting to hire transcribers, run the gently caress away.) Want me to add that to your wall of text in the op? I did edit a couple lines of the op to reflect taking all commerce to SA-Mart. I figure people can post links here to their SA-Mart threads if it's in the topic of this thread, but that there has to be a thread in SA-Mart to begin with. At least that's how I interpret it.
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Jun 29, 2012 21:12
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Nighthand posted:Want me to add that to your wall of text in the op? Admittedly that is not a rule I've discussed with other mods. It is a personal preference to keep real shitstorms away from me  Job opening thread? Fine! Thread where one goon ends up owing another one money? Please go to a forum with rules set up for it already. That's my view, basically.
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Jun 29, 2012 22:08
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Hey, get back on topic. This is the Legitimate Online Moneymaking thread.
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Jun 29, 2012 23:05
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Dr. Kyle Farnsworth posted:I could electronically sign the paperwork and everything, so that did help. The general line is Direct Response which, in my opinion, is the best place to be. If you get in and have any questions, you can email me directly using bluesfan618 at gmail as a lot of the info cannot be shared publicly and can be confusing when you first start
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Jun 29, 2012 23:33
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Excellent, thanks.
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Jun 30, 2012 22:02
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I'm doing the test for Daily Transcripts and I'm wondering if anyone can help me with a few questions. I've done legal transcription before so I have experience with the work but they seem very exacting and their instructions are a mess. 1. They say the transcription needs to be verbatim, but does that mean word shortenings need to be typed as they're spoken (i.e., workin' instead of working, 'em instead of them)? 2. Is there any standard I should be following when it comes to breaking up sentences or using commas? Like are there specific rules for when you should start a new sentence, because human speech is usually not as structured as text and in many cases it seems subjective as to when a sentence is being started. Is that kind of thing even generally considered important in transcription? 3. Their instructions say that Page Margins should be "1003 Default;" is that a typo for "2003 Default?"
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Jul 1, 2012 20:35
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bleedbackwards posted:I'm doing the test for Daily Transcripts and I'm wondering if anyone can help me with a few questions. I've done legal transcription before so I have experience with the work but they seem very exacting and their instructions are a mess. quote:
edit: Sometimes I'll let a run-on sentence stay as a long run-on sentence, but sometimes I'll have to break at an "and." It makes sense grammar-speaking but maybe not cadence-wise. quote:3. Their instructions say that Page Margins should be "1003 Default;" is that a typo for "2003 Default?" vvvv Yeah, I should clarify I meant grammar rules as far as punctuation. I definitely record each word, bad or good grammar. Tesla Insanely Coil fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Jul 1, 2012 |
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Jul 1, 2012 22:02
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Generally speaking, DT doesn't like a lot of slang (or at least they didn't when I first started) for readability reasons, so I've gotten into the habit of "going to" in place of "gonna", "want to" in place of "wanna", etc. I'll occasionally drop an "'em" if the speaker drops the "th", but I generally don't drop trailing g's or anything like that. I don't correct grammar, though, so if someone says "we said we was going to the store" I record it as they speak it. Honestly, I think you're probably fine either way; if they don't like something you're doing, they'll tell you to knock it off. (And of course this is something every single outfit does differently, so if you pick up work from another client be prepared to learn their rules as well. Focus Forward, for instance, doesn't like "okay" unless it's the direct answer to a question, I've got a client that wants me to differentiate between "gonna" and "going to", etc.)
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Jul 1, 2012 23:33
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By the way, this might just be my paranoia getting the better of me, but-- how long do the sites take to get back to you? DT was fast as hell with the test, but it's been several days for the W-9's-- that just a processing thing? (cool if it is, i figure it is, but after unemployment ran out and a part-time decent-pay position fell through, the lagtime has my heartrate up). edit: and thanks for the advice last time. IS is a ton better than ES.
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Jul 2, 2012 02:06
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DT can be pretty busy sometimes, and we're heading into the holiday, so it might be a few days. You've made it over the hump, hopefully they'll get back to you early in the week and get you going. And yeah, I don't know why everyone pushes ES. (Well, outside of it being free, I guess.) I can't stand using anything but InqScribe, to the point where if there's a format I can't do because I use InqScribe -- like DT's three-column technical scripts, they're a royal clusterfuck with IS -- I just tell them not to send me those jobs. Worst one I had was when a client wanted me to use this proprietary software of theirs that required in-out timestamps on every line of dialogue and you couldn't use a pedal with it. I told them I'd be happy to transcribe in that format providing they were paying $10 per minute of tape. We found a way around it.
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Jul 2, 2012 02:51
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Monarchy posted:Zeta sent me a pm asking me what was going on. I hope he doesn't mind me making that a public post because I'd like everyone to be on the same page. I don’t know what to believe here. I really WANT to believe you. I’m a nice guy (avatar proves it). But even if I take you at face value, if I’m reading the time frames correctly, you still published goon work you solicited after you discovered the bank froze the owners account. You could have returned it unpublished once this new development happened. Even if you intended to not defraud anyone, circumstances happened that left people unpaid for work they did on your behalf, and work that you benefited from by publishing it. Regardless of how it happened I cannot allow someone to remain a poster in good standing with that result. What I will do is I will recommend a regular ban, not a permaban. A permaban is my knee-jerk reaction when people are not paid as promised. Once it leaves my hands an admin can do anything they want from reject it entirely all the way to a 100,000 hour probation combined with a perma. But the deal needs to be that you will not buy back your account until you can make everyone whole. If and when you can, your first post will be informing us that you did end up paying everyone. If I see that you have reregistered without paying everyone back, even if you are only lurking, then I will recommend the punishment be upgraded to a permaban.
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Jul 2, 2012 14:46
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Eggplant Wizard posted:Admittedly that is not a rule I've discussed with other mods. It is a personal preference to keep real shitstorms away from me I agree with EPW. The only caveat is that you are welcome to post something here with a link to your thread in SA-Mart.
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Jul 2, 2012 15:07
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Monarchy posted:What I'm doing now is selling the stuff that is off pretty good quality along with a bunch of my own work and paying out of that, and/or removing peoples material (if posted) and replacing it with my own stuff. You don't get paid, but you also don't have to worry about being defrauded. Of course the issue with this is that most of the stuff I've written is pretty specific to what Monarchy wanted. I'm not sure how to market five articles on coffee makers to the general public, after all. So the odds that I'm going to get a roughly equal amount of money from this after trying to alter/cobble together what I can is pretty low. But I suppose I should send an e-mail and see where I fall in that "and/or" situation. Not hopeful either way.
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Jul 2, 2012 17:32
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So for you folks in Canada (I think they're hiring in the US too), I've stumbled upon an article on About.com (that I can't find anymore) and I've been working from home as a customer service representative for the past month and a half. I take calls from home, I get about 8 calls an hour from sunday to wednesday so there's lots of free time to browse SA on my laptop. I get paid 10.15$ an hour (that is in quebec) and I can work from home. So if some of you guys are interested go to their website and type work from home in the search field of their careers site. It's working for me so far, I like it. You need a PC computer (I'm not sure if MAC works), at least 2 MB Download and 1 MB upload internet speed and a USB headset. It cost me about 15 bucks more of internet per month to get the upload speed right and 40 bucks for the headset. There's three weeks paid training from home and then you're on your own. Worth it for students.
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Jul 2, 2012 22:55
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RabbitMage posted:Of course the issue with this is that most of the stuff I've written is pretty specific to what Monarchy wanted. I'm not sure how to market five articles on coffee makers to the general public, after all. So the odds that I'm going to get a roughly equal amount of money from this after trying to alter/cobble together what I can is pretty low. Yeah, I agreed with Zeta that "giving the articles back" wasn't really a solution to the problem. I managed to track down one of the forums where they were selling their websites, and basically a lot of people started complaining about work not getting done around the end of May. From about the 31st, all of their official representatives seem to have vanished, and there are still people trying to get refunds -- and they're out (at least) $297 a pop. pastorrich: What kind of CS work is it? Like level 1 tech support kind of stuff where you're reading from a script? I've always been kind of curious about that stuff, but my transcription and writing gigs have kept me generally just busy enough not to bother looking into it any further.
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Jul 2, 2012 23:49
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My background check cleared and I'm approved for LiveOps. Will post trip report once I read the docs and get some time to do it.
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Jul 4, 2012 02:55
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Textbroker UK emailed out asking for proof-readers. They pay 0.3c a word and jobs are available to anyone with a 4-5 star rating and passes a short test. The test can be taken when you log in. Might be available in the US as well. No idea how well that will pay.
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Jul 4, 2012 18:26
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Anyone got the 411 on TextMaster? It showed up in my techcrunch feed and from a functional standpoint it looks incredibly similar to textbroker.
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Jul 4, 2012 20:25
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DarthBlingBling posted:Textbroker UK emailed out asking for proof-readers. They pay 0.3c a word and jobs are available to anyone with a 4-5 star rating and passes a short test. The test can be taken when you log in. Might be available in the US as well. I haven't seen notice of it for the US version, so either they're behind on notifications or it's just for the UK folks. Scaramouche posted:Anyone got the 411 on TextMaster? It showed up in my techcrunch feed and from a functional standpoint it looks incredibly similar to textbroker. I haven't seen them come up before, but it might be worth checking out. It looks like the more volume you put out, the more you're able to make per 100 words. According to their introduction pages, the lowest level (0-9999 words of content in an unspecified period of time) is $1.40 per 100 words, which is 1.4 cents a word, identical to Textbroker's 4-star amount. Though they might take commission out of that, which would lower the writer's income. Looks like TextMaster's benefit is if you're writing stuff at the Standard or Expert levels instead of just the Basic level, where the price goes up to 4.2 and 11.2 cents a word respectively. I can only imagine that the number of assignments at that level are slim, but without signing up I can't say for sure. As for the time period to rack up enough words of production to rank up, I'm wondering if it expires at all. The top tier is 5,000,000 words +, which would be completely impossible in a month or two unless you spent every waking moment writing. It could be rewarding long-time workers as a pay increase over time. Let us know if you investigate further and make out like a bandit before the goonrush.
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Jul 4, 2012 21:50
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Sorry I should have been more clear; I'm more interested as a client but I signed up as a writer anyway just for giggles. They showed me a picture of a tree and asked me to write 150-250 words about it so I made up this post apocalyptic scenario about the Last Tree On Earth. Don't think that's the kind of sample they were going for...
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Jul 5, 2012 19:35
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Oh, okay. Yeah, I haven't seen TextMasters come up in this thread or the previous one before, so your guess is as good as mine. I do intent to register and see how it looks for inclusion in the OP though.
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Jul 5, 2012 21:00
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I've signed up as a client as well, but am not going to start anything for a while; I'm a bit leery of their 'credits' system. For those who don't know, to start a project you first have to buy 'credits', and then each project (writing, proofing, translating) costs x credit per word. It seems like an unnecessary abstraction; the only gain I can see is that the more credits you buy at one time the cheaper they are. The other worry is that they might be adjusting how many credits are needed per project, meaning the credits you buy now are worth more/less in the future depending on 'inflation' or the like.
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Jul 5, 2012 23:38
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Yeah, that looked a bit weird to me. The writer side doesn't look like it deals with the credits, at least from their preview. They do mention that if a client receives work from a writer that they don't approve of and reject, and that the staff agrees with the rejection, that the writer has to start over and try again until the client is satisfied. So as a client, you at least have a reasonable guarantee you get something usable out of it.
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Jul 6, 2012 00:19
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I think I've officially permanently switched over to EWOQ2 in Leapforce. Some of the other guys in LF chat say they can get reviews and URLs from time to time, but I don't seem to get out of E2. It's been about 10 days, when I've had tasks, that I've been in E2. My contract expires this month, and I'm not sure if I'll be renewed. The supplemental income was nice though. Armitage fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Jul 6, 2012 |
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Jul 6, 2012 00:54
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I occasionally get review tasks and the regular URL rating tasks in the old interface, but for the most part it's been all EWOQ2 stuff recently. I don't mind it, but I miss some of the basic tasks at times. My contract was just renewed, despite the fact that between school and working another job, I sometimes don't even hit 10 hours per week.
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Jul 6, 2012 01:51
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I haven't seen a URL task in three weeks, and it's the third URL drought I've had so far this year. I just miss the task variety. All it seems like now for me is SxS and these dwarf tasks with the occasional staleness or list thrown in. Though to be honest I get a bit antsy if I see review tasks all the time too 
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Jul 6, 2012 01:57
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E1 rarely comes up anymore, and they've started porting URL Rating tasks to E2 so they're steadily moving towards switching over entirely. I don't think it's any sign that they won't renew your contract if you don't see E1 anymore. Their emphasis lately definitely seems to be on the dwarfs, which is unfortunate because the timing is tight on them and I find them pretty mentally taxing.
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Jul 6, 2012 02:39
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I saw I think 4 URLs in the last few months. All I get are EXP and SXS tasks and have for a while. I think the review tasks are my favorite because they are so low power mentally.
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Jul 6, 2012 04:25
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Just a quick FWIW: LiveOps: I applied at LiveOps April 17. It took so long to hear back from them, I forgot about it! Got an email invitation to complete the process this week. Did the paperwork and background check today. Will update. Leapforce: I've been with Leapforce for about 22 months. LF isn't a perfect company, but I really don't have any complaints. I've worked anywhere from 40 - 110 hours per month. There is certainly enough task availability to work this job full-time if you're a person who can sit and do repetitive tasks over and over for hours on end I'd like to, but no success so far. I go brain-dead. I've had PA status since Nov 2011, so the extra $ has been nice. Never had any trouble with invoicing or getting paid. You really need to be comfortable with being left alone to sink or swim, because there is little communication.
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Jul 6, 2012 05:25
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I'm with Lionbridge and all I seem to get are experimental and the occasional SxS. I'm still kind of new and it is so annoying having to learn a new experimental every time I want to do anything. Usually I just say screw it and watch tv or something. My brain just totally shuts down and I find it hard to concentrate on what they want. It's just frustrating they give you a 100+ page book to read and I haven't even applied any of it because I have never had URL rating yet.
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Jul 6, 2012 05:51
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All the Search Engine Evaluation jobs I've seen require a college degree, have any of you got it without one? I'm also interested in what WPM the transcribers here are doing. I can type pretty fast and have thought about doing transcription work in the past, but reading all the rules for it makes it look pretty daunting. Thanks a bunch.
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Jul 6, 2012 07:14
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