Working With Auto Accept Links

What is an Auto Accept Link?
An Auto Accept Link (AAL) is exactly what it says - it's a link that, when entered into a browser, will automatically accept the HIT in which it is associated with. Meaning, as soon as the link is entered, clicked, or refreshed, a HIT will be assigned to the user and the HIT timer will be started.

The Anatomy of an Auto Accept Link
An AAL is normally created when you work a batch HIT and click the check mark below the submit button that allows mTurk to automatically accept the next HIT in the HIT group. This is done to allow you to quickly move to the next HIT and save you a small amount of time.



Once you submit the HIT with this box checked, mTurk creates the AAL and will continue to do so until the box is unchecked or the HITs run out.

The AAL that is organically created looks something like this:



While that URL in your address bar looks long and daunting, there is actually only a small part of it that is needed to automatically accept the HIT:



The highlighted portion of the URL above shows a much easier to deal with URL and the meat of an AAL.

The string of numbers and letters at the end of the URL after groupId= is called the...Group ID. Every different HIT type that a requester creates will be assigned it's own unique Group ID number. This number is static, meaning it will never change (unless the requester creates a whole new HIT every time they post, which none do). This Group ID number is all that is needed to build your own Auto Accept Link for that HIT.

So, in short, an AAL is built of two parts. The Base URL and the Group ID number:



Working With Auto Accept Links
Now that you know what an AAL is, how it is created organically, and how to create one on your own; let's learn how to use them to maximize both your batch work and for getting more work from a batch (that means two different things, I'll explain later).

You already knew this or you learned it in the Newcomers section on the Wiki, but a worker can queue up to 25 HITs at once. Meaning you can assign yourself 25 HITs and then go back and do them later. Keep in mind, though, that if you queue up 25 HITs that have short HIT timers; you may find yourself with a bunch of abandoned HITs.

Using an AAL you can simply hit refresh to queue a HIT. If you press refresh again another HIT will be queued. Spamming refresh repeatedly will fill up your queue. On large batch HITs that go really fast due to the amount of workers on them, this can guarantee you at least 25 of those HITs. Also, you will notice towards the end of a batch that it will appear that there are a lot of HITs remaining and then go to zero all at once, this is people filling up their queue to get the most HITs they can.

Queueing HITs should not be a new thing to an experienced Turker, this is how many of us get the most out of fast moving batches.

You can expand on this with the help of an auto refresh extension. There is one for both major browsers:


 * Chrome: Page Refresh
 * Firefox: ReloadEvery

If you open an AAL in one tab and then your queue in another, you can work from your queue while your refreshing tab continues to add work to you. This means that the whole time you are working a batch you will always have 25 HITs still lined up to work, even when the work is gone. It is best to set your refresh time to just a bit faster than it takes you to do a HIT, that way eventually it will fill up your queue because it is adding them faster than you can do them. Or you can just spam refresh (of the F5 key) to fill up your queue immediately and then have it adding them back as you do them.

Here are a few things to keep in mind while you do this:


 * If you do not have Masters Qualification then you will need to periodically check your refreshing tab to make sure a captcha has not stopped you from accepting new HITs.
 * Constantly refreshing the page will cause errors with mTurk.com if you have other programs such as Chrome Page Monitor or Check4Change working in the background. It is best to disable these extensions until you are done with the batch.

Working a Batch Even When It Is "Gone"
The end of a batch is not always a bad thing, it usually just means that all of the unknowing piranhas go back to their holes and leave the straggling work to us bottom feeders.

mTurk's batch system is a bit slow. What I mean by that is let's say that Requester X creates a batch of 5,000 awesome HITs. These HITs are so popular that as soon as they are released, hundreds maybe thousands of workers start doing them. As the HITs are accepted, completed, returned, or abandoned, Amazon's systems isn't smart enough or quick enough to keep up with an accurate HIT count. Eventually it gets the number right, but as the smoke is settling and Amazon thinks the HIT count is zero, it will still have several uncompleted HITs still floating out there just waiting to be had. If you keep your auto refresh extension running (Page Refresh or ReloadEvery) and just monitor your queue, you will continue to work even when the batch is "gone".

This isn't an exact science and works better with some HIT types, but it works well enough that it should be tried on every fast moving batch that you work on. As they say, your mileage may very.

Discussion
I hope this makes enough sense that you can at least improve your batch working skills. If you have any troubles and/or feedback, please post it in the thread below.

For further discussion about this article please see it's thread in the FORUMS.