The new Mturk API's

[Project 2501]

Mturk did more than provide a way for a requester to undo a rejections in their recent changes. They also provided a way to get a specific Assignment for a hit and to get your list of blocked workers. They will now host the HTML code of a hit instead of making the requester host them on their own server. Last, they now have a way to queue your hit results as the workers do them.


http://mechanicalturk.typepad.com/bl...-and-sdks.html

The Details

UnReject An Assignment
Have you ever mistakenly rejected an Assignment? The new API call, ApproveRejectedAssignment lets you reverse rejections. Provide the Assignment ID for the rejected Assignment that you want to Approve and Mechanical Turk will mark the Assignment as “Approved”, the Worker will be paid from your pre-paid HITs balance and the Worker’s Approval Statistics will be updated to reflect this change.

Get Individual Assignments
We have added a new API Call, GetAssignment so now instead of getting all the assignments for a HIT and parsing them to find the one you need, you can get the specific Assignment you need.

Get a list of Workers you've Blocked
The new GetBlockedWorkers call will return a list of the Workers you’ve blocked. You can also get this information from the Requester web site.


Create HITs in HTML Without Having to Externally Host Them
Previously, if you wanted to create HITs in HTML via the API you needed to host the HTML yourself. Now we will host the HTML for you and give you two easy ways to create HITs with HTML:
If you have designed a HIT in the Requester web site, you're now able to use that design in the API. This allows you to get your HIT design just right before you integrate with the API. We also added the ability to provide the HTML for your HITs via the API, without using the Requester web site.
To create HITs in the API based on a template you created via the Requester web site, you need to provide the template’s HIT Layout ID in the CreateHIT Call. Every HIT Template created on the Requester website now has a unique HIT Layout ID. To find your template’s HIT LayoutID click on “Layout ID” from the Design Page of the Requester web site.

[melissa71642]

This should solve A TON of problems for requesters who say that they can't undo rejections

[rosewater]

That's great! Now if they just had a way to bonus us or pay for a hit without us having submitted one. I've had that happen many times. Happened today with a hit that got stuck - I e'd the requester and we went back and forth a couple of times about what exactly happened, my browser, etc. Then he wanted to bonus me $1.00 for my time and effort- I told him I didn't think he could unless he did a dummy hit, but, thanks for the thought. Would have been nice to say, oh, you just...

[nab911]

This news makes me soo happy. I feel like it came just in time for M8 to start fixing their problems and hopefully, help any "distaste" people have after getting rejections to be resolved and build the community.

[alohashavon]

Really great news on the "UnReject An Assignment" option
This should make it much easier for the requesters with good intentions to do the right thing when a HIT is rejected in error. Thank you for keeping us informed!

[thadius856]

Actually, I'm happiest about being able to host the HTML on Amazon's servers.

That means that those of us that Turk occasionally behind the a firewall or proxy that get page loads rejected or blocked (at work, at school, etc.) might be able to load more HITs. I know I submitted four sites for review last night to my proxy list provider, and got them approved, but they won't be unblocked for almost 24 hours.

It'll probably cost a premium, so I expect it much more on the high-paying surveys than on the penny hits.

[dalturker]

Good job AMT. Very nice improvements. finally requesters now have a way to reverse rejections without having to go through AMT.

[JamesBJames - closed]

An easy way to reverse rejected HITs? Thank God.

[rosewater]

That's great! Now if they just had a way to bonus us or pay for a hit without us having submitted one. I've had that happen many times. Happened today with a hit that got stuck - I e'd the requester and we went back and forth a couple of times about what exactly happened, my browser, etc. Then he wanted to bonus me $1.00 for my time and effort- I told him I didn't think he could unless he did a dummy hit, but, thanks for the thought. Would have been nice to say, oh, you just...

Evidently, there is a way now because he did it today!
I should say, I think he just did it through Amazon, not Mturk- it doesn't show in my Dashboard, just my Amazon account and I got an e from Amazon- says I received a payment from... not a bonus. So, evidently they can do it. Wish I knew the steps they have to take...

[Zanarias]

I'm interested in how many requesters will actually USE the fact they can unreject HITs.