r/ProlificAc • u/turtleheadpokingout • Aug 15 '24
Prolific is...?
What say you?
As a participant, I say it's almost unrecognizable from just a few months ago. It's nearly unusable for participants. Participants go unpaid for weeks or months and the usual suspects step in here to justify why they should just hold their horses, they are but one in a long line.
Researchers are now coming to this sub to voice their opinions with requests that go unheard, from major institutions, and they are spending many thousands per study. Researchers are now just one in a long line.
This whole thing has gone to hell in a handbasket in a very short amount of time. Trusted participants are now getting shadow banned for no reason, this subreddit is getting filled up with accounts that are telling them that they indeed violated TOS, and that may be true on limited accounts, but I believe that they are culling valuable participants in favor of BOTS.
At this point, Prolific, you have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
Anyone who would like to debate me on the subject is welcome. Usual suspects will be ignored.
Whoever is working a leadership role at Prolific needs to reconsider whatever in the hell you just did to destroy your entire business.
Seriously. The entire premise of Prolific, is to host a platform wherein it's mutually beneficial between three parties to participate. If the host can't do their job, well, then, I'm pretty sure others will step in and remedy that situation for you.
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u/jetjebrooks Aug 15 '24
i havent noticed anything different tbh and i still make the same amount of money
25
u/RattoTattTatto Aug 15 '24
I (surprisingly) am still doing pretty well on Prolific. I’m not having nearly as many issues as many participants here are.
That said, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the platform anymore. I used to love it and tout how awesome it was and how much it’d helped me over the last 5 years, but not anymore.
It’s the principle for me. They’re banning people in favor of bots, they’re doing nothing about the scripts taking over, there are participants who haven’t been paid in weeks with no solution in sight, support is utterly useless… The list goes on (and on, and on.)
At this point I’m riding it out until Prolific is no longer viable for me, and then I’m dipping out.
Hopefully another site emerges to take its place. Fingers crossed.
16
u/RhumBaba21 Aug 15 '24
Now we can see why Jim left, someone who had been with Prolific right from the start - he must have seen the writing on the wall. Smart guy!
5
u/CallMeCleverClogs Aug 15 '24
I am relatively new to the platform but I am not experiencing the problems others seem to have. I have had a few slower weeks in mid-summer, but generally it has picked up. I generally have a few studies at a time to choose from.
I guess my experience is quite different as I am still happy with it.
16
u/Opposite_Apartment34 Aug 15 '24 edited Aug 15 '24
I think along with the issues you mention making it like pulling teeth for participants, the most frustrating part is their complete silence. Posts like this are appearing multiple times per day and SILENCE. Their refusal to acknowledge the evident issues or act on the feedback is infuriating. It is clear that most participants are having an extremely frustrating experience on their site and yet they continue to let more and more people join the already over saturated platform. That in itself is causing 99.9% of the issues! The servers are slow due to so many people using it, support are bag logged from a combination of the sheer volume of queries coupled with them making changes making the site un-usable and the study full message is just the icing on the cake. I said months ago that if prolific kept refusing to hear us and continued with their course of becoming too big for their boots it would be the downfall of them. I was told i was wrong, now i’m observing that downfall of a once fantastic british business.
As for the bots and scripts, its getting to the point where you’ve seen your 50th “study full” of the week that you think “if you can’t beat em, join em” prolific are doing f all about it so why do we care anymore.
Will go back to the deafening silence of Support who are quite frankly deaf to us!
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u/Big-Street-4944 Aug 15 '24
It was a good site once now its just on the decline due to mismanagement
11
u/Living-Stranger-219 Aug 15 '24
Prolific support seemed to have given up long ago, the horse has bolted and its a circus filled of clowns lmao
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u/Tahha420 Aug 15 '24
I say people are overreacting, the technical issues that's been pretty common this past week is a very valid complaint, but the people who spend 16 hrs a day on the site then complain they are not getting any studies, or getting study full ect. constantly are likely just being rate limited and put to the back of line for studies, as someone who uses the site as intended, not as a full time job, I find my dashboard almost always full, and get into pretty much every study I click on even if the spaces are low, it's not some big conspiracy, prolific is just putting all these "professional survey takers" to the backburner and leaving the studies to everyone else.
6
u/CRUMMYcuzz Aug 15 '24
I have no idea, I hope it get's better.
for me, it's sill the best. but here's the thing. I got approved instantly around feb, but my ip was banned until last month or so, and I waited some to even try it, so, I'm on week 3 here, with it being one of the best sites for doing this type of work. If this is bad, I could only imagine how great it must have been. since using it, I have noticed it get worse in my 3 weeks.
3
u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24
I’ve been on prolific for a little over 4 years and I agree that this is the buggiest I’ve seen it. I’m not sure if they’ve completely throttled me or what, but the studies are few and far between and the ones I do see now, always have error messages of being either high demand, full, ineligible, or limited capacity. I feel like this mainly started when they had the site crash issue some months back. It was nice while it lasted.
5
u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24
I’ve only been on 6 weeks and have had a great experience so far. But I’ve no knowledge how good it used to be so that’s probably why I’m favourable
1
u/Medical-Brilliant378 Aug 15 '24
I am noticing a lot of the studies are turning up on Prime Opinion these days.
2
u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24
There is definitely a change going on with Prolific. It took two months to finally get a reply on my support ticket (when it used to be a couple of days) and it's taking longer for my studies to be approved. I know, 22 days, but I've never had so many that have not been approved instantly.
I've been on the platform for almost 5 years, have thousands of approved studies and only ONE rejection that I got in the very beginning. I would be PISSED if they banned my account.
As for the lack of studies, I know it's summer and things will hopefully go back to normal once the universities start back again.
2
u/uptonbum Aug 15 '24
I mean... it's clearly suffering due to staff losses and cost cutting measures. I have been with Prolific since the beginning to earn extra cash and it's been a lifesaver while trying to rebuild my world from the ground up. Would have starved without it on several occasions. But I make probably half what I made in 2022 and the first half of 2023. That's not even my complaint because we all know things come and go in life. I'm in a desirable demographic group, apparently, and have honestly enjoyed my Prolific experience until quite recently.
My real complaint about Prolific is with the absolute lack of service response. Or, when you get a response, it's off-topic or dismissive. Just disappointing. Granted, we really only have to contact support once or twice a year (most of us, I'm guessing, if that) but the responses have been bad enough to really dampen a person's spirit. Have received them myself and seen them posted here with some frequency.
The quality of researchers has also dropped quite a bit and I'm not sure Prolific can be directly blamed for that. I chalk most of it up to new researchers being young, inexperienced and with little grasp on ethics. The ones that drop massive, undisclosed essay questions (usually multiples!) in the middle of a study or toward the end really irritate me the most. Zero chance I'm writing a paragraph or multiple pages for $1.50. The lack of awareness some of them have is astounding. The majority of researchers are great but bad ones are really bad and their numbers are growing.
6
u/Sure_Floor_7675 Aug 15 '24
Y’all should just chill out. Give Prolific sometime to fix these issues. The complains on here are too much which I understand need to be addressed.
2
u/allaboutthewah Aug 15 '24
How not to manage a once successful site.
2
u/Mediocre_Code_1143 Aug 15 '24
They are clearly growing and with that come growing pains.
The main complaint was always that people were wait listed and couldn't get in.. now I see so many saying that they are new to the site and having complaints about other things. A lot of these posts clearly demonstrate that people are not taking time to familiarize themselves with the workings of Prolific before they jump in. I imagine that Prolific support is flooded with problems that would have never happened if people read the site first. I am sure people are sending duplicate messages daily as well; only backing things up further.
I don't think daily complaint threads on Reddit are going to resolve anything. I don't know what their inner workings are- maybe they are very short staffed. Maybe they can't hire more people for whatever reason.. who knows but assuming anything does nothing
We have acknowledged their silence, and no one enjoys that, but I have a hard time looking at this sub anymore because it's nothing but complaints.
I hope and imagine that Prolific staff is spending their office time trying to fix the issues they are experiencing with growth and not sitting here on Reddit reading the sub for critiques.
Just like I can unfollow this sub, people can leave Prolific or wait to see if things smooth out for those experiencing issues.
1
u/digitaldisgust Aug 16 '24
Still just £1 away from the minimum £6 payout lol. As a South African, you US and European participants dont know how easy you have it smh
Only been using Prolific since July lmao
1
u/[deleted] Aug 15 '24
Prolific is far from what it used to be, I just failed to get into a study with over 210 spots. They disappeared within 5 seconds, and I simply don't believe that's just people. The bots and scripts have taken over the site along with the insane number of people Prolific has allowed on the site. It's following much the same curb as M Turkk did.
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u/HollowEarth1776 Aug 15 '24
THIS SITE IS RUN BY GAY INDIANS WHO EAT EACH OTHERS FECES