Pakgamers Is Now DEAD! A Win For Requesters!

I was going to post a followup to Fredrick's post about Tim Edwards, but in doing some research I discovered that Pakgamers is now dead.

The final post on pakgamers

 As most of you know, I try to educate both workers and requesters on how to use Mturk so that it works out best for all of us. In doing this, I have to keep an eye on people who are out to scam Mturk. Since Amazon has put a halt on new accounts outside of the United States, one of the biggest scam forums for cheating Mturk has finally closed down. PAKGAMERS SCAMMER FORUM THREAD
If you read that entire thread, you will be shocked at the amount of dishonest practices that were going on overseas. Everything from how to make multiple accounts without getting caught to selling of American accounts overseas. This was a thorn in the side of honest workers for a long time and it is finally gone.

Now that Amazon Mechanical Turk is not accepting new accounts overseas, the quality of data is increasing dramatically. It is unfortunate because a lot of Asian workers were honest and hard working, but at the same time a majority of the accounts that were being created to cheat requesters were being created in India and Asia. I also need to state that there are many workers from outside the United States that have a better grasp on the English language than Americans. Many of them have a better work ethic and are diligent and honest workers.

For years the workers on TurkerNation have been reporting this forum to Amazon to show them what is going on and finally Amazon has taken steps to reduce this cheating and tighten the reigns on the workforce. This is not only a win for requesters on Amazon Mechanical Turk, it is also a win for workers. This adds an element of trust to the workforce that has never been possible in the past.

Add me on Twitter for updates to this blog. @pokernonsmoker