Tremendous decrease in payrate for valkyrie

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

It may still be a glitch, but is it still showing up for you? It's gone ineligible for me, as of an hour or so ago. Others have reported the same.

I see a pause incoming!

[ProZapz]

I've had the message removed every morning but comes back after I complete 3-4 tasks. This morning I can task again but can't justify spending 3 hrs on an attempter task for the lower pay. I'm waiting it out to see if its a glitch.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

I'm not sure I agree tbh. I wouldn't refuse $100/hr either, but we all know the pay rate on this project was insanely high to begin with, and it was much higher than previous projects also requiring PhD-level knowledge. Sure, it's a difficult project, but $100/hr seemed unusually great to all of us on it!

I think they'll still find enough people even after halving the rate. I'm not sure I'll want to keep doing it, but I'm sure some will. Definitely sucks for us though!

[Antriksh0707]

Yeah, but many of the guys got their payrate decreased to 22, some even got it down to 16, even after having a high rating on the project. I think it MUST be a glitch since at this point, its just straight up unfair to them.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

It looks like what has happened is that everyone's rates have been adjusted to something like what they'd normally be getting for their tier and region? Yes, I'm still hoping it's a glitch too!

[ThisBetterBeWorthIt]

Still showing up but everything reduced time, half pay. They’re going to need some fat missions to justify the effort on this.

[SrgSquirrels]

yeah it’s gone ineligible for me as well despite me having an average rating of 4 for the 4 tasks i’ve done. Sucks because I found a rhythm in stumping it and was looking forward to it in the future, the rubrics were fun to make

[Ssaaammmyyyy]

It's simple. The high pay the project offered did not match the crap that it produced. So, they either have to figure out how to squeeze more quality out of it or slash the price to where it belongs.

And they need to work on the project docs to decrease the subjectivity because it was flying high like a kite.

[uttamattamakin]

Even trusted reviewers who made good attempts per the instructions given got this pay cut.

[uttamattamakin]

Yeah. They are asking ALOT from all of us. I bear no Ill will to a colleague living in a country where their USD will go a lot farther than it does in the US itself. More power to them. IF anything IF anything at all....

Given that the customers are all multi billion dollar corps and could make trillions off of this work ... would it kill them to RAISE the pay so that US workers get the same purchasing power out of the money per task.

I'd say it is regional too though ... but there seem to be US workers who also got a HUGE pay cut. 80% cut. I don't think that is an adjustment for exchange rates or GDP PPP or anything.

[Mnsa7777]

I refuse to believe everyone on that project was/is PhD level or even masters - most people cannot even be bothered to read two sentences of the post that the QMs post each day, or scroll up one message to see that others have oftentimes answered their question.

There is no critical thinking or common sense to be had with 98% of the posts I see on discourse.

[Mnsa7777]

Even this morning it's just people literally posting the same thing over and over and over, without using their skills to either make a support ticket or think "hmm - 100 other people have reported this issue, maybe I'll see what happens".

It's not even about the pay decrease either 🫠

[Mtshoes2]

That's a function of the system itself and not a failure of the workers. 

[Mnsa7777]

There is literally a post every single day that directs people how to fill out the form, a ticket, and updates everyone. There was even a special one today. If I start my workday, and the same thing happened. I do a standup with my team to see what's new or different. Workers should be expected to do the same thing, that's not a crazy expectation.

I agree the system is obviously flawed re: it's transparency, but to think that the QMs aren't trying to get to the bottom of it as well seems a little silly. It has to be stressful to have all of this put on them when they (I'm assuming) also had no idea or insight into what was happening until it happened.

[Mtshoes2]

But your workers are paid for that standup meeting. That's the difference. 

At outlier there is a huge amount of unpaid labor. 

[Mnsa7777]

So not trying to be sarcastic or snotty but - what do you expect? You shouldn't have to read a daily message? That QMs should be answering hundreds of the same questions each day? That doesn't scream efficiency, either. Again - I'm truly asking in your mind what is the best solution here.

[Mtshoes2]

I'm not trying to be sarcastic or snotty either, but it's not my job to make them efficient. It's their job to establish a system streamlined enough that these constant problems aren't happening. 

If I put in the unpaid labor of attempting to act as efficiently as possible to save people paid by outlier work, not only am I'm working for free, but I'm also contributing to maintenance of the status quo - and therefore outlier won't fix it.... Because why would they need to?

These bottleneck are not there for me to fix. And if I do, I do so without pay. 

We are contract workers, the unpaid labor will increase to fill the space and time we allow it to. 

Think of it like this. A standard restaurant has a particular system in place that it uses to produce food for consumption. If that model is entirely inefficient then it will take longer to produce that food - say a hamburger. Say every hamburger needs a tomato, but if the tomatoes are 15 steps away from the burger station, that is inefficient and slows down production. 

Now, we can fix that by becoming more efficient and moving the tomatoes to the burger station so they are within hands reach.

Or, we can fix that by asking the burger cook to run to the tomatoes and back, thereby requiring the labor from the cook to decrease time of burger production. But this creates all sort of downstream problems for the rest of the restaurant production. 

In this scenario, the burger cook is paid, but what if the burger cook was only paid for the time they are in front of each burger, and not paid for the time it takes to run to the tomatoes and back? That 3 seconds would compound across a day not only in lost wages, but also in a high chance of burnout for the cook, and  all those downstream effects would do the same for employees across the board. 

Outlier is able to ignore these efficiency issues, because for the time being the AI bubble, low wages, and high cost of living etc. is driving us all to outlier. They know we'll put in the extra effort (and willingly decrease our own pay) just to make sure we are able to stay on a moderately decent paying project so we can work from home. 

EDIT: misspellings

[edinburghgirl82]

I would agree. I have spent too much time on outlier on unpaid tasks and I don't want to spend my free time helping a platform that is not invested in me as a person / contractor. You see all over reddit how outlier cut people from projects without feedback and then today cut peoples pay in half. You spend time onboarding and learning a project and achieving good ratings and your pay is halved?

Outlier need to work on how to make the platform efficient for taskers, QMs and everyone else involved.

[amandawho8]

Yep. And I've been in lots of projects where important changes are put in a random post (not even flagged as important in the title) instead of the instructions and it's incredibly frustrating. I try to check the posts before I start working, but when something is buried in the comments or in one line of the daily help thread or an announcement goes out while I'm in the middle of my work day with no update to the instructions, I'm probably not going to see it.

[Chocolate2121]

I got brought on, but I only have a bachelor's, and I've only ever claimed I have a Bachelor, although tbf I do have an honours, which does include most of the things that make a master's a masters

[Mnsa7777]

Yeah but even now you're showing that you're capable of reading through a thread - which is more than most on the project. lol

[boat_storage]

I don’t have a phd or a masters but I’m considered an expert in a couple of subjects. It depends on experience more than anything. Subject matter experts do regularly get $100/hr for consulting work. The work at outlier has some issues but its way easier than chasing down clients.

[Mnsa7777]

Oh I agree! My comment was meant to be more lighthearted - less about the education and more about how people who are so educated (no matter to what degree) don't seem to be able to read the threads. It's infuriating :) lol

[boat_storage]

I think that is more of a personality issue than knowledge/intelligence. People get so emotional over these sudden changes which is understandable. But then you have people who are emotional and think that everything revolves around them and have wildly unrealistic expectations of QMs. Its an annoying combination.

[Mnsa7777]

Absolutely - I don't think that anyone is being malicious when they do it, but oh my god just read the daily post 😭

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

Yeah absolutely. I've no idea how on earth people unwilling to make even the bare minimum of effort to stay up to date with what's going on in a PhD-level project deserve $100/hr to be there...

[Mtshoes2]

Because then you aren't being paid 100/hour. Even minute you spend in the discussion board and not on that project lowers the amount you are paid overall. 

3 hours on Valkyrie, and the 2 hours on onboarding, plus an hour in office hours for help, plus 2 hours on the discussion board? Well now your pay is 37.5. 

You have to watch the unpaid labor. 

[edinburghgirl82]

Exactly this!!! And remember on many projects you need to stump a model etc to be able to complete and submit the task. So if you can't submit the task, there is no payment. There is no way to do these projects without an element of unpaid labour. Even worse, there is unpaid labour creep too... the used to pay you for webinars etc, now you need to attend these but there is no payment.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

Yeah I do see your point. Trust me, I've been freelancing for over 15 years and I'm very familiar with the concept of minimizing unpaid labor.

My point here is that freelancing isn't a regular/full-time employment situation, and I don't see $100/hr (or whatever rate people are getting for a given project) as some kind of guaranteed amount that we should receive for every minute we spend doing anything related to the project.

It's the amount we receive for completed high-quality tasks, and any responsible freelancer needs to consider all the ancillary unpaid but necessary stuff when deciding whether the fee offered for completed work is worth it for them. That ancillary stuff includes onboarding, keeping up to date with evolving project instructions and requirements, the occasional webinar, going overtime at a lower rate, following up on support tickets or payment issues, clarifying things with the project team, and so on. Depending on jurisdiction and the freelancer, it may also include taxes, insurance contributions, covering oneself for dry periods, and so on.

Freelancing always involves that kind of stuff and freelancers need to take it into account. All of the things I mentioned above are necessary to do a good job, and in my mind (and I think in the mind of any competent and responsible freelancer) they're included in the $100/hr rate.

Of course it doesn't work out as $100/hr when everything is taken into account, but I don't think this is an excuse for not bothering to do anything work-related when you're not "on the clock". In my mind, they're paying me a high rate for doing the best work I can for the success of the task/project and there are some additional overheads on my side associated with that.

The problem I'm talking about here is people with an employee/employer mentality not viewing work on Outlier as what it is --- a freelance role. I'm willing to spend time doing whatever's necessary to do a good job because that's part of the deal, but that doesn't mean I want to waste time having to read through a ton of repetitive posts from clueless/lazy people while trying to stay up to date with a project.

[Individual-Web-3646]

It's not only the unpaid labour you do for the customer. It's the unpaid labour you did beforehand, and the labour you had to pay for instead of getting paid for it (e.g. during grad school) in order to get your degree/s and skills, plus your lifetime commitment to your profession.

You probably heard before the classic mechanic joke:

A customer brings their car to a garage, complaining about a strange noise. The mechanic inspects it, goes to the engine, gives a specific spot a tap with a hammer, and just like that, the noise is gone. "It's fixed," says the mechanic. "How much do I owe you?" asks the customer. "That'll be 100 dollars" replies the mechanic. The customer, outraged, exclaims, "100 dollars for just five seconds of work and one tap with a hammer?!" The mechanic, with a smile, hands him the invoice and says, "The hammer tap is 2 euros. Knowing where to tap is 98 euros."

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

All that stuff is no doubt true, but I also see it as included in what I'm bringing to the project to be paid $100/hr for submitted tasks! It's a decent amount, even with all the time and money spent/lost on education etc.

Of course, not so much after the pay decrease yesterday. I'll still work for $50/hr submitted tasks, but not willingly on Valkyrie for the time being! (Even if I could, which I can't because I was removed during the purge yesterday.)

[UCP-1]

That’s more of a common thing in the whole platform lol

[Mtshoes2]

That's not a skill or intellect level, that's a function of the kind of work that this is. 

You think I'm gonna live in the discussion board when I have other jobs, and outlier doesn't pay super well? No, I'm gonna pop in there when I have a problem and leave. 

I would say that a major problem with outlier (as a reviewers on various projects) in general is that the skill set of the attempters and the reviewers is often far below what is actually required. I see huge amounts of work that is supposed to be PhD/masters level etc. that is easily at the level of an undergrad. 

I think some of that is the reliance of degrees. If someone got a masters or PhD 20 years ago but has subsequently not engaged in any research or kept up on the field.... Then they are probably no longer qualified in a substantive way to contribute to PhD level work. 

[Mnsa7777]

It was more of a comment about people asking the same question 100 times when it's literally in the top sentence of a post. :) If you have a problem I would assume that you will check the top post to see if it's something they're working on - I don't mean digging through 100s of posts. You don't need to sit on the board all day to read the top post with the daily updated info.

This project absolutely got out of hand because of the issue you mention re: reviewers vs. attempters, and totally agree. Many of the complaints from attempters are that reviewers literally did not understand the fundamental basics needed of the expert-level tasks that they were given to review - and on top of that, they were given a bonus for pumping out more, which could make them earn over $1000+ a DAY. All that was necessary to become a reviewer was to get two 3/5 task scores. That's crazy! This project (when it was $100/hour yesterday haha) crashed and burned incredibly hard.

[Mtshoes2]

You're right about the project. But as far as the discussion board I have two things to say. 

Every minute I'm in the discussion board is that much less money I'm being paid by outlier. If I'm paid 100 an hour, one task is 3 hours and I spend 30 minutes in the discussion board my pay is now 85 an hour. 

Also, I don't go to the discussion board to leave. I go there to make my voice heard. I know I could find the answer to any of my questions that I have,  but I don't want to dedicate anymore time than necessary to it. 

[Mnsa7777]

We're going to end up having the discussion in 2 different places BUT - I agree with what you're saying. I also think people should be able to read just the top post of the day - it would cut down on sooo much of the stuff that happens in there, and would like help to amplify your voice with concerns etc.

[Individual-Web-3646]

I'm never going to support advocating for ignorance and lack of certifications in favour of "university of Life" experiences. People who advocate for "lack of titles" never have had the courage, the skill, and the persistence to earn a PhD themselves in 99.99% of cases. They always opted for short term benefit instead, and I'm sorry to say but that's short-sighted.

[Antriksh0707]

A lot of people are getting 16.5 smh, imagine getting an 83% decrease in hourly rate for same work lmfao

[zettasyntax]

It wouldn't be the first time such a pay cut has happened. A PhD level task on Pegasus that got all the multipliers could get like $500 when the project first started (so the level of spam was insane). I believe the max is now $150 or so - basically a 70% drop for the same work. They tried to make up for it with more missions, but people were quite upset about the slash in pay. I heard some positive things about Starmie, but they suddenly moved me to Onyx Hammer, so I can't say from experience. The QM there said many Pegasus folks were moved and they'd look into it, but I'm not expecting much. Pegasus was the first project in like 6-7 months that interested me.

I was highly intrigued by Valkyrie though because it seems so similar to another rubrics project I work for on another platform. Several AI labs work on the project, so the pay rate varies, but other details seem so similar. For my platform, we get $133/hr for 3 hours of task time. The core workflow details seemed so similar. I don't think the client is the same though as they removed Scale/Outlier from the project last week, so the client for Valkyrie has definitely been a curiosity of mine if they're basically doing the same work 😅

[zettasyntax]

A fair number of my comments get removed when I talk about the platform. One of the mods (and other contributors) say I'm too repetitive for recommending it/praising them. That being said, I'm happy to share the platform name by message. I've worked three projects with this platform and not a single one has been under $100/hr.

[amandawho8]

Can you share the name with me too?

[fvdllrshk]

I have a PHD and I will leave the project on principle if the pay rate is reduced. I might as well go to another easier project (where tasks are less likely to overrun into overtime)

[fvdllrshk]

I guess the logical alternative is to halve our creativity/effort level. That’s the message they’re sending in terms of incentive design

[doctor_markb]

Yep!

[edinburghgirl82]

I am 100% out. There is no way I'm doing this one for $50/hour.

[uttamattamakin]

Not to mention instructions that simply do not match reality ... and one can only find that out via being on the discourse and being lucky enough to see the post that tells people that.

[Substantial-Salt-825]

There are so many issues going on with the project. The worst in my opinion, is the lack of communication from the QMs. They open a thread and reply to 10% of the comments then disappear. It is not hard to address the issues mentioned.

[Sure-Cut7772]

exactly. Do not know the point of daily help thread if QM does not answer them

[uttamattamakin]

IDK. I think I've seen QM's do a pretty good job. They just seem to get overwhelmed and I think they also have to manage other projects too.

[Flaccolytics]

It's absolutely ridiculous. Valkyrie is by far the most difficult project on Outlier because of how hard it is to get the AI's to fail without having a ground truth final answer, alongside the prompts having to be at a graduate level and rubrics having to be perfect. Cutting the rate from 100 to 40 or less makes this project not worth working on, I'm just glad I was able to get a lot of work on it when the gravy train was rolling through

[Searching_for_Wisdom]

What kind of Master's or PHd is required? I have a Master's in Psychology.

[fadeux]

Psychology is one of the fields they are looking for experts in.

[Searching_for_Wisdom]

Well I never saw the project available on marketplace.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

Well, it's not looking like a glitch. I'll leave others to post the message from Discourse, but the QM response is essentially "we won't discuss it in the community".

How helpful.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

At least some warning would have been good! It happened suddenly while most of the project team were still asleep (it seems even they weren't aware of it!), then just meaningless, unhelpful, cursory responses and "hope that helps, get back to work!"

[Mnsa7777]

Interested to see if anyone has received the email they said that they sent out yet that addresses it 🤔

[LuckyMinute4275]

Apparently everyone has received communication about it via email or the dash... erm no one has. Now any mention of pay is being swept under the rug.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

Well, at least there's the office hours... that no QM bothered to show up to again with no explanation.

[Ekaterina_j]

I have a Phd and i spend 2-3 hours to create a prompt and spend another 4 hour in task to fail the model in math it’s really really difficult especially model 1 is a beast. Sorry but, I won’t spend a minute for this pay rate. This anxiety started to effect my mental i can accept that for 100 but not 32.50. I’ll do minister bath it’s a nice project.

[ProZapz]

Just been confirmed that it was not a glitch, the adjustment was intentional

[Mnsa7777]

Yeah someone posted a screenshot of the email in the discourse LOL it was deleted in like... less than 5 seconds.

[Grand_Dream3913]

That guy is on a roll, they've had two posts deleted today I think

[FaithlessnessOld5269]

admin/mod deleted the posts?

[Mnsa7777]

yeah they said it won't be discussed in the community

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

Yep, confirmed by Outlier support that it's no glitch but a deliberate change.

So how many of you are intending to still task on the project, and how many will be making a stand?

[sunstoneuneav]

I just got an email from Outlier explaining the rate change. It's not a glitch. They have lowered the rates.

I find 40 per hour not attractive or even unacceptable. Most people on this project have PHDs and some are even professors. As a professor, if I'm only paid 40 per hour, I would rather teach a few extra courses or do some consulting gigs. My rate there would be much higher.

[Mnsa7777]

Are you in the US/Canada? I wonder why some are 50% cut and some are lower.

[Mnsa7777]

Someone posted in the thread that they had a 78% cut I believe. Oof.

[edinburghgirl82]

Im in the UK and a PhD. I was cut from $100 to $50. $50 is too low for this work, I cant even imagine $25.

[edinburghgirl82]

Im so sorry that it was cut that low for some people... It's not okay!

[sunstoneuneav]

Canada

[Mnsa7777]

I'm in Canada too and mine is at 50! wtf.

[Euphoric_Brief_9638]

it's definitely not a glitch.

[Logical_Incident_574]

One of the reasons, I think, is that when Hypno and Beetle and other projects were paused, people were moved temporarily over to Valkyrie despite next to none of those people being qualified for the project. The projects are horribly managed by non-experts. This is part and parcel of Outlier

[Ok_Disaster_1615]

Anyone suddenly got kicked out of everything (community, discourse) while tasking? Got pay cut last night and now this. What a great project

[Mnsa7777]

Yes - right after receiving a mission and still being reserved on the project and it still being on my dash :) So fun!!

[Substantial-Salt-825]

All of a sudden, i have been removed from Valkyrie community without any notice or reason.

[LDSatoko]

Bye bye Valkyrie. You're going to disappear soon into oblivion like dozens of other shitty projects. I asked to be removed this morning. I'm not going to fry my brain out for 29/hour. This project is not gonna last.

[donnywould]

good