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This is an extension written in javascript for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge to help people who are working on MTURK, Amazon Mechanical Turk, collect HITs so they can work on HITs easier and faster. The full source code is placed on Github for anyone to look at and check. You may create your own fork but I can not support or be responsible for any changes you make. It's best to request a change or new feature in the issues area so I can add it in if it's appropriate. The issues area of Github can be used to inform me of bugs also. This wiki should have the full documentation on how the extension will work for new users and advanced users.

• You can use these main links to read more documentation or use the sidebar links to find exactly what you need. There is also links to areas of the wiki in the footer at the bottom of the page as well.

  • [About PandaCrazy Max] [Differences from Original] [Quick Start] [Privacy Policy]

  • [PandaUI Page] [SearchUI Page] [External Helpers] [[Advanced Topics]]

Welcome to the PandaCrazy Max wiki!

• This extension is only used for MTURK, Amazon Mechanical Turk, to help in finding and grabbing tasks for a human to work on and get paid where computers may not be able to do so. The tasks on MTURK are called HITs, Human Intelligence Tasks, which this extension will try to grab for the user. This extension is not able to create an account, explain MTURK or give any support for MTURK. Many people are using scripts to find and accept HITs so I created this script to help out. There are other scripts which may be free or costs money to use. This extension is free to use with limited support according to how much free time I have to explain. I do accept donations which will be explained later but it is not mandatory.

• The extension uses a timer which by default is set at 1 second to grab a panda link from the added jobs. Each job that is added from an external or internal button will be shown in the panda tabs area. If you want a job to start to collect you need to click on the collect button. Each job that is collecting will take turns being fetched by the extension using the timer value. So if you have 5 jobs collecting it will take about 5 seconds to try to grab any HITs from those 5 jobs. When the extension detects that a HIT was accepted it will sound an alarm and/or send a notification to the user. On the bottom is the queue watch tab which will show any accepted HITs in MTURK queue. Once you have HITs accepted you can go to the MTURK queue page and work on the HITs. This extension will not do your tasks for you.

• The searchUI page which is called SearchCrazy is where all search jobs will be placed. Any search jobs on this page are called search triggers. The extension will monitor the MTURK search page for any of these triggers you have set. You can have triggers look for a requester ID, group ID or a word in the title/description of a HIT. Once the script finds a HIT it will create or start a panda job on the pandaUI page according to options set for the trigger. Any HITs found from a custom trigger with a word or phrase in the title or description and price will sound an alarm and be shown on a tab where you can start collecting it. There is a way to auto collect some HITs too but with limits so your queue won't get filled up with HITs you don't have time to finish.

• The extension does save stats and HITs history in a database on your computer for use on the stats page. You may also export all of your job and trigger data to a file so you can transfer it to another computer or have a backup for emergencies. The alarm sounds can all be changed to a mp3 sound you want if you don't like the default sounds.

Major differences between previous userscript.

Added Timers

The extension uses 3 timers instead of just 1.

1. There is a panda timer where all the jobs you have collecting will take turns trying to grab HITs.
2. The search timer handles the search jobs by searching the mturk HIT page.
3. The queue timer handles the amount of time to check your mturk queue.

• The reason why there are more timers is because mturk changed the way PRE's worked in 2018. Collecting panda's won't interfere with the search page on mturk or the queue page. They all have different PRE rates. Because the search timer is separate the script uses it to search for all search jobs at once instead of each individually. This allows a user to have hundreds of search jobs without affecting the panda jobs.

Search Jobs Changed

• Search Jobs were added to the original script when I found it would be nice to have HITs collected automatically if a requester drops some new HITs. At that time panda and search jobs shared the same PRE limits. When MTURK changed their pages a few years ago the PRE limits were changed as well. Now there is a PRE for panda links and search links. Changing the original script to use this new limits would be a big challenge so I decided to make this extension instead.
• Now the search jobs are called search triggers because the script keeps checking the MTURK search page for any triggered HIT. This allows users to add hundreds of search triggers and allow the script to check all triggers every time it checks the search page. Because of this new way of searching I decided to create a new page called SearchCrazy or SearchUI which shows all the search triggers on one page instead of mixed up with panda jobs. This also allows a user to enable or disable search triggers fast and easily. Opening the SearchCrazy page and clicking the Start Search button will search for any of the enabled triggers. To make it easier for users of the older script I also allowed search jobs to be added to the PandaCrazy page too. The search jobs on the pandacrazy page functions the same way as search triggers but the user has to individually turn them on.
• I recommend understanding how search triggers work and move all search jobs to the SearchCrazy page. I added buttons on the search job detail dialog to make moving jobs to triggers easy and fast. You can also have all search jobs created externally instantly create a search trigger instead with an option in the general options menu.

Search Job HIT Collections

The previous way of collecting HITs from a search job was done in the background. This worked fine and it would work with this new extension as well but I though of giving the user more control over which HIT gets collected over others. Search job or triggers will now create a panda job for each HIT it finds if not created before. If the panda job is already created then it will start collecting it. This allows you full control of the HITs being collected by disabling HITs you don't want collected or changing the details for each HIT. This works fine for requesters who only drop 1 or 2 HITs at a time but when there are dozens of HITs dropped at once it can add a lot of jobs at once which may be a problem. For now this is the way it works but may be changed if needed in the future.

Hit weights removed

Weights are no longer needed due to the search job changes. Weights were a way to have a rare HIT skip their turns to give other jobs more chances to grab a HIT. This can be done with a GID, Group ID Search, job and it won't affect the other panda jobs.

Quick Start.

1. This will be a quick start for any new users to get collecting HITs as soon as possible. Once you have the extension installed you should see an icon on the extension bar that have the letters 'PC MAX' on it. Click on that icon and then click on the Start PandaCrazy*** button. It should open up a page for you with many buttons at the top. In the middle you will see a tab area where there should be one panda job shown for an example. At the bottom shows your HITs in MTURK queue.

2. If you have a HIT you want to collect then you can either copy that link or get the group ID. To add it to the panda job area just click on the Add Job button at the top. When the dialog modal opens up all you have to do is paste the link or group ID to the top text input area. Then click on the Add new Panda Info button on the bottom. You should now see your new panda job in the middle area. No jobs are working until you press the Collect button on the panda job card. So press that Collect button and let it try to collect any HITs it finds. If it finds a HIT you will see it the queue watch on the bottom.

3. Now that you have a HIT in your queue you can either go to MTURK page and start working on that HIT or click on the Continue Work link to the right of the HIT info in the queue watch. This will open up a window where you can complete the HIT and submit it.

4. That was the quick steps to get you started to collect HITs. You may delete the HIT that was added by example by clicking on the X button on the panda job card. For more functions the extension can do please click on the documentation links on the sidebar or footer area of this page. There is a lot more this extension can do for you and you have many options that can be changed to fit your style of work.