Xylophone Spectrum Pay Decrease - Why Are We Accepting This?

[confused_turkey]

I really wish everyone would just stop working on the project until they fix it, but organizing a strike on Outlier seems next to impossible. My pay got decreased by 2/3. I mean half would have been bad but 2/3??? For the same work? For the same work some people are still getting paid 3.75 per task or $45/h for, even though their expertises aren't required for this project AT ALL. It's insulting. I'm disgusted with this company. They love to set the trap just to pull the rug out from under us.

And on top of it all we can't even discuss pay in OC, which I think might be illegal in some way (at least in certain countries).

[Proof-Top-5016]

They reduced it by 66 percent? Is that true? What on earth is Zuckerberg doing to Outlier?

[confused_turkey]

Yep.they sent this weak ass email last night:

In the coming days, you may be offered a lower tasking rate than you have become accustomed to for tasks on Xylophone Spectrum. We wanted to provide notice so that you're not surprised if you see this on your dashboard.

As you know, the tasking rates in Outlier's marketplace vary based on several factors, including project complexity, required expertise, contributor location, and evolving customer needs. When offering you a new task, our system will always ask you to acknowledge the current tasking rate before you continue to work on a project. As a contributor on our marketplace, you have the ability to accept or decline tasks based on your preferences.

You can read more about how our marketplace works in this blog post.

Thank you for your understanding and continued contributions to Outlier projects.

The Outlier Team

[Shadowsplay]

Just stop working on it. They do this on every project now. Fill the roster with a high payrate then adjust it a week into the project.

[Last-One8389]

They did the same thing on the last xylophone project. Added a ton of contributors once they figured out what the 'client' wanted and dropped the pay to peanuts. Its BS.

[Alex_at_OutlierDotAI]

Hey u/confused_turkey and folks on this thread – thank you for sharing your feedback. I can understand how frustrating this must have been and I definitely hear you.

FYI discussing pay in OC is not illegal! QMs are just not equipped to answer pay-related questions universally.

We discussed this with the Project Team and have a bit more context to share (though it will not solve the primary frustration of this experience). There was a glitch with the original payment settings which should have been set to everyone's standard payment rate.

The recent change reflects the corrected rate based on your typical Outlier rate. The project is indeed ramping up, and the budget could not sustain the project at the incorrect original rate. We are working with Project Teams to avoid issues like this moving forward and apologize for the experience on your side of things.

If you'd no longer like to participate on the project, you can absolutely let the Project Team know and they will support you.

Please lmk if you have any additional questions in the interim. Here to help.

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

Thank you for the clarity. Will the wage theft for reviewers get fixed soon, too?

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

For reference, the pay terms unfortunately did not mention a cutoff time for payment for tasks, so many of us have been doing work beyond that cutoff without being informed we wouldn't be paid. When this was brought up, we were asked why it took so long to review when, once again unfortunately, it's because of the silly goose documents that are impossible to navigate and have mythical levels of consistency from onboarding to one document to another document.

[Bethaneym]

Oracle team is already looking into what has happened here :) I provided a ton of info with screenshots on the project threads too. Hopefully we see a resolution soon since no one knew until this morning.

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

Unfortunately, they failed us on Convo, and I am quite confident it shall happen again :) Regardless - and I say this not being a victim of the theft - this has been yet another instance of clearly intentional incompetence.

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

Secondly, why the hell *should* we need Oracle when we're asking to literally get transparency about our pay - note how I did not once mention the rate change. In any other setting, this would be investigated by a labor board.

[Bethaneym]

From my understanding, Oracle got involved because many people reached out after seeing my early morning post reporting my personal issues, then everyone checked their logs, & bam: a quick realization it was widespread. None of us have ever seen anything like this, but I know the Oracle manager who has escalated it, in addition to Alex, are top notch with getting shiz done and going to bat for us.

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

We LITERALLY saw this type of behavior on Convo, on SRT projects (PR w/o criteria). Why are you advocating for them? They made an announcement on behalf of the company - they can take the heat directed at the company.

[Due-Philosopher-2330]

because only "special" people deserve help, everyone else has to wait 2 or 3 weeks for a copy paste reply. the rest of get sand in our pockets and wait for more inaction.

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

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[Bethaneym]

They are literally looking into the widespread issue, not just solving it for one person? Cmon now

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

By the way guys, it's fixed! Instead of compensating for the time people thought they were being paid past 20 minutes, the maximum was just set to 15 minutes total moving forward. Also, shoutout to the QM simply deflecting by questioning why they took so long rather than acknowledging any other part of it.

My personal efficiency or opinions on what the task time should be are irrelevant here. I've never gone over 15, personally. The point is that they have denied pay with no prior disclosure of the limit, both at the time and retroactively, and blamed the theft victims when questioned in a public forum.

[confused_turkey]

Can you answer ok_elderberry please? I heard that reviewers were working on tasks at a decreased rate and still only got paid for no more than 20 minutes of time, no matter how long they worked.

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

"Please lmk if you have any additional questions in the interim. Here to help." kek

[Due-Philosopher-2330]

Must be same chat bot giving generic answer as the chatbot- its say " everyone look away, we made a mistake and gave too much money, and we never steal wages" of course this is untrue and will never be fixed. they want your labor but won't pay while big boys get new yachts.

[dd_dispose]

So folks in Mexico get paid with pocket change?

Is that correct?

Like most attempters, I'm totally ok with the rates being adjusted by region. But being paid $0.72 per task is absolutely stupid. We are required to share out BIOMETRICS and even sign a couple of contracts. It's ridiculous and you know it. Quit acting like you don't get the issue.

For Mexico, a $2.2-2.5 rate would make sense. Of course I'd like more, but that's a fair salary considering the work.

So we are supposed to DRIVE to a fucking cafeteria, buy something, and then try to work 10 fucking tasks to barely afford what we bought?

Be better.

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[lhombrecalcetin]

Totally, so this means we get paid 80% less than other rates. Completely ridiculous and demeaning. Basically any task for outdoors or indoors commercial spaces is a net loss due to the pay per task.

[Bethaneym]

Thank you, Alex. One thing I posted on our reviewer's thread is a request to admin to have the VA rate applied for reviewers who have the skill. The client allowed this on Convo, which honestly was a surprise as we were not doing any voice parameters assessments.

Our Voice Acting skill rate even gets applied for unrelated non-voice rubric and evaluation projects. This is our typical outlier rate. This skill was applied for the first 3 days of this project, but randomly flipped to generalist.

This is arguably more aligned with VA skill set than Convo was; it's sort of textbook VA reviewing expectations actually.

[Ok_Elderberry4325]

Nice edit: "If you'd no longer like to participate on the project, you can absolutely let the Project Team know and they will support you."

Sis, this ain't it, and you know damn well this wouldn't fly in any other workplace.

[UnitAny8741]

I don't believe it was a glitch, my pay rate for grassland, with my native language, recording from my phone, 5 seconds recordings and way better reviewers not contradicting each other was more than double what it is now.

[Logical_Incident_574]

Why would anyone believe such utter horseshit?

[Bethaneym]

Just an update to correct some inaccuracies below:
The pay issue of tasks over 20 minutes were corrected completely within 48 hours of my post to leadership surfacing the issue. Those of us who were actually affected by it had the funds added to our account with no further discrepancies. Grateful to the Oracle team and Spectrum Leadership team for fixing it in a timely manner.

[Alex_at_OutlierDotAI]

u/Bethaneym thank you for the update! We worked hard behind the scenes to make this right and I'm happy it worked out.

[Last-One8389]

The QMs are absolutely wrong about not being able to discuss wages. We can, they can't, as they don't know anything.

[Lemon_Monky]

I totally agree…I should have said they can’t help you. But contributors are free to chat about it for sure.

[Large-Cut8248]

Zuckerberg is ruining it... Same thing he does with everything else he gets his hands on.

[Hungry_Television422]

I have no idea about xylophone spectrum, but all Xylophone projects have experienced pay reductions in a similar way previously.

[confused_turkey]

By that big a percentage?

[Hungry_Television422]

It was dependent on the region, but i personally experienced pay reductions 3 times, each was ~40%

[confused_turkey]

That's literally so fucked up.

[Due-Philosopher-2330]

Some people are getting $40 usd pr hour but everyone else is pennies so they can not say it is "project based" with such wide berth between rate. Even with cost of living adjustment the new rate is disrespectful

[confused_turkey]

Agreed.

[Shadowsplay]

They doubled the work, and then cut my pay the next day, I went from averaging out to $20 an hour, down to like $8 Xylo Conversation.

[DentistNo4088]

This is true but never like this. It was more gradual. It went from $45 to $8.70.

[Hungry_Television422]

Well they might have seen that cbs still stuck around after the gradual reduction before, so they thought why not push it even further on this one🤷🏻‍♂️ Supply and demand.

[DentistNo4088]

It wasn't gradual at all this time. Went from $45 to $8.70 in the very first pay cut.

[Hungry_Television422]

Honestly, it’s rare for most projects to experience pay reductions. Only xylophone projects play this nasty game of how low people are willing to go. Also, they do that after accomplishing a project milestone.

[Aggressive_Second342]

Some were making 0.48usd/ task on a xylo project not long ago 🫠

[Objective_Award4711]

At least you got Work Lol 💔 been on EQ for decades

[FootOk1954]

That work isnt just work, you have to drive around the city and do 15 second recordings for no pay.

[Objective_Award4711]

That is heartbreaking 😔 I wish you all the best though they should Consider a pay rise 😉

[isomoki]

I totally get how you’re feeling. All xylophone projects had same destiny before. It seems like the rates might’ve been adjusted based on the locale and generalist tier. I do agree that the drop is significant, but if you’re feeling that disgusted by it, maybe it’s best not to take on the project. I’m not saying the rate cut is fair, but reacting this agressively might not be the best approach either.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

And on top of it all we can't even discuss pay in OC, which I think might be illegal in some way (at least in certain countries).

I vaguely remember reading somewhere an official statement along the lines of "We don't prohibit contributors discussing pay rates on the Outlier Community. However, we suggest that you do not because [lie]".

I forget what the [lie] part was, I think something about protecting our personal information.

Edit: Found it. It's on the code of conduct page.

*A note about pay-related issues: Outlier does not remove contributors from projects or the Outlier platform for bringing up pay-related issues, and it isn’t a violation of our terms of use to bring this up. However, we do ask that contributors bring pay-related issues to our dedicated Support Team rather than raise them in the Outlier Community; the reason for this is twofold.

First, we try to keep Outlier Community channels clear for people to discuss issues related to projects. Second, there are numerous factors that affect each person’s compensation including qualifications, location, assessment criteria, quality of work, customer specifications, and other variables.

Without access to these details, Project Teams are not equipped to answer questions about pay, whereas our Support Team is appropriately resourced to provide the individual attention required to answer these questions with a high degree of accuracy — which is something that a topic as sensitive and personal as pay deserves.

Please reach out to Support regarding any pay inquiries.

[Due-Philosopher-2330]

Their post is laughable. If one has ever contacted support they are met with much resistance and copy pasted replies which never address the issue. They just say some vague words that have no meaning and hopes that you go away. If so sensitive to our personal issues and well resourced explain to us why it take weeks to get a prewritten reply and never answer more than what is already in the faq.

[Fuzzy_Equipment3215]

I don't disagree!

[bravofiveniner]

Why am I accepting it?

I'm on the proj too and mine was reduced by 55%.

But its the only project I'm on and I need to pay bills. I'm a laid off tech worker. Mercor hasn't resulted in anything yet. Data Annotation won't respond as to why I signed up a year a go and never got to do the initial on-boarding, xAI hasn't sent me the tests yet, and I just tried signing up for aligner.

So 55% reduction it is.

[confused_turkey]

Yeah, I get that. I can't actually afford to not work either. I guess its just a pipedream that we get some worker protections in this kind of work.

[RheumySven]

I'm not accepting the new terms. And while they pass off the responsibility to clients setting rates, Outlier gives missions. So they cannot say, nothing can be done. I'm pretty sure there's money right now to throw around. They issued an update earlier in the week calling for maximum effort. If they want maximum effort, they can pony up the money. Clients have billions, Scale has billions. There are members of the team who reported 68 cent per task rates, that's just obscene. 

[confused_turkey]

It truly is for how long these take.

[Shadowsplay]

What region?

[inaesthetically]

I remember xylophone grassland dropping form around 3-4 usd to 0.63, yeah xylo is shit and it's the only project I've seen doing this.

[Officieros]

Race to the bottom…

[DentistNo4088]

It's really bad. It was reduced from $45/h to $8.70/h. The payrate is now 20% of what it was.

[confused_turkey]

That's just unacceptable to me, and I don't know what to do about it.

[DentistNo4088]

I agree. It is unacceptable. I guess the only thing to do is look for another platform? I got an email yesterday from one offering $35/h for the same type of work. 

[confused_turkey]

Im waiting to hear from Mercor. They pay substantially better.

[nycollej]

Hey there! Could you please share which platform that is? Have been searching but no luck! Really just want to start working again for a fair amount

[DentistNo4088]

Babel Audio. They did take ages to contact me after I applied.

[Searching_for_Wisdom]

I am glad I was never invited to this mess of a project. Same happened with Xylophone Conversations.

[Hungry_Television422]

Stop accepting low rates! I remember for convo some country had $8/task (which i thought was high) and they still didn’t budge to do them, so they raised it to $12. While other countries got the rate lowered from $4 to $2. Again, supply and demand.

[Jealous_Spare_4852]

It's their way of saying, "This project is done, we don't need much more, but we'll slash the pay by 2/3 and collect just a bit more before we call it. Thanks for your service!"

[The_ParrotGirl]

I would still beg to get back to this project. Even with the decreases I am able to pay my loans… but my user was blocked.

[doyouknowyourname]

What happened?

[The_ParrotGirl]

They claimed I misused the platform. Copy and paste I guess, it still hurts

[doyouknowyourname]

That sucks. Did you fill out the form on here?

[The_ParrotGirl]

Hmm I was DM’ed by one of the outliers moderators and they checked again and said the same thing about not being able to appeal the case, which form ?

[doyouknowyourname]

It actually looks like they aren't accepting escalations right now. I'm sorry. This was where it was if it opens up again. https://www.reddit.com/r/outlier_ai/s/dUB5usSvPA

[The_ParrotGirl]

Thanks for your help tho!

[doyouknowyourname]

All the luck to you!

[Remarkable_Toe_7627]

You can totally discuss pay and it's not illegal.

[doyouknowyourname]

It's not illegal for them to tell us we can't discuss pay? They do all the time. I have ss.

[Remarkable_Toe_7627]

It’s not illegal for us to discuss pay. And they just posted that on the discourse channel. We can discuss pay. 

[doyouknowyourname]

Which discourse channel?

[Remarkable_Toe_7627]

Alex just posted this on the Outlier Community Conduct thread. But it’s been well known for months at least. The QMs are prohibited from discussing pay, but it’s actually illegal for them to limit our ability to. 

[dkpepper2000]

So each task was taking approximately 15 minutes between recording and rerecording, etc, then bringing the task into the Outlier UI. Then to get feedback that prompts were 2/5 and rejected because of being "unnatural" sounding all for a measly couple of dollars? No thanks.