Four out of ten HITs are spam. Surprise.

So says NYU business professor, Panos Ipeirotis.  Here's his finding:
The results were disturbing. Out of the total of 5841 HITs, a total of 2390 HITs, or 40.92% were marked as spam HITs.
Turkers have a feel for what to avoid.  If it sounds too good to be true, if it looks fishy, if the requester is unknown and offering $10.13 for a ''quick HIT'', we try it once, and don't try it ever again.  But why are these tasks still on the site at all?  They're painfully obvious to notice (except for newcomers), and they bring down the efficiency and reputation of the site.  Maybe Amazon will do something about it.

Here's the link to Panos' full post describing his research: http://behind-the-enemy-lines.blogspot.com/2010/12/mechanical-turk-now-with-4092-spam.html