Community Blog
CloudCrowd Editing - Review and Fix
New Freelance Editing Feature for CloudCrowd
CloudCrowd listened to the feedback regarding work rejected for minor issues like a space missing after a comma or a small typo, and we are releasing a new version of the review process called "Review and Fix." Rather than simply rejecting work with minor flaws, reviewing editors will have an option to make minor corrections and receive a fix-it-fee for doing so. The Review and Fix will be released very soon so please be patient with us as we move to make what CloudCrowd sees as a major process improvement for our editors.
Why do we call it a Fix-it-Fee? [and not a bonus?]
We're going to call the increased pay an added fee because the fee will be taken from the original editor. The original editor will essentially receive a small penalty for missing or making the mistake. The upside is that more work will be accepted, thereby increasing the overall earnings for our editors. The fix-it-fee is equal to $0.25.
What are the implications?
The review workers will have to be even more diligent not to make changes for stylistic reasons because workers will still have the option to make appeals. Moreover, CloudCrowd conducts routine audits of our workers and if we see that a worker is submitting a very high volume of review work as fixed, we will find people who are abusing the system. With that as the premise, there will be disagreements between editors on comma usage rules or quotation. CloudCrowd is developing a styleguide to address this issue.
What are the conditions for making a fix?
Among the first questions a reviewer is going to ask when opening a document is whether it needs fixes or not. To help, CloudCrowd is providing a few suggested guidelines.
- Missing space between words;
- Minor typo such as reversed letters;
- Slightly flawed word choice which may include incorrect preposition use, lack of the 'ly' on adverbs, inconsistent capitalization or missing a "the" are all great examples of minor fixes that take nearly zero time to do yet have a major impact on document quality;
- Punctuation errors such as incorrect semi-colon usage, quote placement or comma over-use are all easy to fix once spotted.
This is not meant by any means to be a restrictive list; it's merely a guide for the type of errors our reviewers should be fixing. Just as before, if a document is poorly edited, or not edited at all, then it should be rejected. There's no reason to accept bad work from someone else just for an extra quarter.
Want to learn more?
Read the Review and Fix instructions.
Think this process could be even better? Have a suggestion for minor fixes not listed here?
Make a comment on the official discussion thread for Review and Fix.
EditZen Heralds New Application
Take a look at this website: www.editzen.com. Notice anything unusual about it? If you have an Editor credential you might have already figured out that EditZen is the first standalone business built entirely on CloudCrowd.
Work submitted to this site gets processed and fed into projects like Edit Documents. We’re excited about this ecosystem. The EditZen team, which is part of the CloudCrowd family of companies, focuses on generating demand by advertising on the web and by other means, and providing customer support to EditZen paying customers. But as you will of course appreciate, the vast bulk of the work is done by the Crowd.
As the EditZen website explains, we undercut all of the established companies in the space, both on cost and on speed. The main editing task currently pays about $1.50 for 300 words, and it looks like most editors are making between $15-$20 per hour on this work. We have many more applications like EditZen under development, all designed to bring work to the CloudCrowd Workspace.
New Worker Services
We’ve now paid for more than 400,000 tasks, and have more than 18,000 registered workers. We’re increasing the number of projects that are available; as I write this there are 6 available, representing thousands of tasks with the lowest task paying fifteen cents each. We also are excited to announce that we’ve just brought our first translation tasks online, and we’re signing up French to English and German to English translators.
On the Worker Support front, our appeals process has been adjusted so that an appeal on a rejected task can now be filed as frequently as once every 3 days. Additionally, we’re just rolling out a Comments function that will allow (and in some cases require) reviewers to give some detail on rejections.
We’ve also just started rolling out a new system for sending out notifications of new work. This is designed to address the frustration of “you sent me an email, but when I got to the site there wasn’t anything left.” With the new system, the number of notifications that get sent out is regulated according to how much work is available.
Finally, we are in the process of shifting our discussion forums from Facebook to a new system that we expect will provide more satisfying solutions to questions and exchange of useful tips and tricks.
These features were all prioritized because it became clear to us that they were frustration points. Please keep the feedback coming.
CloudCrowd Update
I'm pleased to announce today that we are rolling out a number of new projects and features over the next week:
New Projects:
Research Video Scripts: We'll give you a topic, and you'll provide four high-quality resources that will help a scriptwriter prepare a video script. If you enjoy internet research and have a good eye for detail, you'll really enjoy this project.
Write Video Scripts: We have had significant demand for more complex writing and review projects. Our new scriptwriting project will help meet that need. We'll hand you articles the crowd has already researched on a specific topic and asked to write a "How To" script that will be used to produce a video tutorial. It's the perfect project for workers with strong writing skills, and will pay $5 per completed script.
Clean Up Recipes: You'll polish a simple recipe, break it into steps, clean it up for presentation, and select the category underwhich it's the best fit.
Categorize Business Websites: If you love quick tasks that you can complete by just pointing and clicking, this is the project for you. You'll review business websites to determine if they're working properly, and whether the business name we give you matches the name on the website.
New Features:
Re-Rating: We recently added a feature that works behind the scenes to ensure that your work is graded fairly and accurately. Re-rating allows a CloudCrowd administrator to review any task at any time, and change the original grade if it was awarded unfairly. If you've ever noticed that you suddenly had a small extra payment in your account that you weren't expecting, you may have benefited from re-rating. Re-rating takes place in addition to Appeals, and is one more way we ensure that you're paid for all the work you complete correctly at CloudCrowd.
Multiple Choice Credential Pre-Testing: Doing a Credential task, particularly for a more complex task like our Write Video Scripts project, can take time. To help you determine whether you're ready to apply for certain Credentials, we've implemented multiple choices tests that you'll take before doing specific Credential tasks. When you can pass the multiple choice test with 100% accuracy, you're ready to do the Credential task. Look for multiple choice pre-testing on Research Video Scripts and Write Video Scripts.
CloudCrowd Discussion Forum: While it's not technically a new feature, many workers are not aware of our Facebook-based CloudCrowd Discussion Forum. It's a great place to ask questions, learn tips about new projects and features, give feedback, and meet some of your fellow workers.
Current Project Highlights: Our Write Video Summaries project has thousands of tasks available, and is easier than ever. There is no need to sit through the entire video-- clicking through to summarize key points is sufficient. One worker who has focused on this project has already earned more than $300. They have mastered the art of the summary-- writing just enough to cover the key steps, without wasting time with the rest.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback.
Respectfully,
Alex Edelstein
CEO CloudCrowd
CloudCrowd Update
Today, I'm pleased to report we're rolling out new work and new features.
Here's a quick update:
New Features:
Credentials: We are adding our long-awaited Credentials feature this week. Some projects will be reserved for workers with the appropriate Credential, which represents a specific level of skill in a given area. You can earn Credentials by taking tests. Often, the test is simply to do a single task of the type the Credential represents. Your work will be reviewed and a decision made whether or not to award the Credential.
The Credential process will help ensure that your hard work is being reviewed by qualified workers. After testing for a Credential you will receive email notification when a decision is made. Generally, you can only test for a Credential when we have active work available that requires that Credential. --Also, if you fail the test for a specific Credential you may be able to take that test again, but you will have to wait.
Reasons: Technically, this isn't brand new, but many of you will be seeing them for the first time in the next month. Reasons allow a worker to specify why they are rejecting something. They decrease the likelihood that a rejection will be unfairly graded.
Highlighting: If you do one of the tasks for our new Highlight Resumes project, you'll see our snazzy new highlighting widget.
Workforce and Work: Today we expect to post 6 projects of work. We still don't have the quantities we want, but the backlog is building nicely. Thank you for your participation!
Respectfully,
Alex Edelstein
CEO CloudCrowd
CloudCrowd Update
Last week we successfully implemented our first significant piece of work for an outside client. If you did any of the work involving sporting goods, you know the project I'm talking about. Our client was very pleased with the quality of the work and the speed of our response, and that portends well for our ability to acquire future work. Thank you to everyone who worked on this project for doing a great job on a challenging task.
New Features:
We recently added the ability to view the details of past work you've done. If you haven't seen that yet, go to your History and try clicking on one of your tasks. This feature should make it easier to understand why tasks were rejected.
We also developed a Categorization widget that Workers used during the sporting goods project to categorize different products. The tool received positive reviews, and we'll be using it again in the future.
Our new corporate website at www.cloudcrowd.com has gone live, and we got our company and community blogs up and running. We made some behind-the-scenes improvements to our payment system as well.
We have a number of new projects already lined up, and we'll be delivering new work soon.
Thanks again for your patience.
Respectfully,
Alex Edelstein
CEO
CloudCrowd
www.cloudcrowd.com
CloudCrowd Update
Dear CloudCrowd Workers,
Recent Improvements
I wanted to give everyone an update on the work we're doing to improve the CloudCrowd work experience. We have been building a bunch of pieces of unglamorous, but necessary, infrastructure. We completed the part of the Payment System that chases down all the little payments that fail or are denied. That's why your "Awaiting Payment" field now shows the right value (that was a pretty embarrassing bug).
We also built the Notification system we needed to provide better information to workers. For example, we have a concept of Probation, which occurs when a Worker's Credibility drops to a certain point, but before they would be Suspended. That requires some automated emailing, which is now in place. We made good headway on getting our Blog up, which will make it easier for Workers to get up to speed on what's going on. We made our Referral code smarter so your referral links and invitations will work consistently.
Showing 1 - 8 of 10 Articles
Write a comment