Thursday, 24 August 2017

An open letter to Prolific Academic


*** EDITED TO ADD: Credit where credit is due, Prolific reached out to me not only here but also on Reddit, Facebook and by PM and email, and their response was brilliant. They hadn't removed posts on Reddit at all, there was a delay in them showing and I jumped the gun - sorry guys! I have to say they've been fantastic in trying to resolve this - the referral system is back up and running and it sounds as if they have a lot of great plans ahead, so I'm perfectly happy to continue recommending them as one of my top 3 earners :) ***


Hi, I've been a Prolific member for some time and a great advocate of your platform. While your referral system was working I sent over 160 referrals to Prolific. However I notice that as of around the end of July, your referral system stopped working. Considering that since the 1st August I have gained 157 Swagbucks referrals (http://nikkersuk.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/the-end-of-summer-may-be-here-but-you.html) and over 200 Mintvine referrals (https://mintvine.com/users/register/d800dcae12047d0653eeaa9e5) I reckon I have missed out on AT LEAST 100 Prolific referrals. All of this with no notice from you guys that the referral system wasn't working.

And then, upon being informed that there was an error, you inform us that the referral system has been disabled! How is this acceptable to loyal members that are promoting YOUR platform?

But it doesn't stop there. This morning I notice that you have changed the referral links for members to gain referrals - again without notifying us. Not only this but you actually got the link wrong in your own system! Maybe you should tell your techy guys how to spell 'participant'? Many people are now sharing incorrect referral links, which not only makes them look stupid and makes you look unprofessional (it gives a 404 error), but also wastes everyone's time.

I'm shocked and saddened at how badly you have treated your loyal members and until something is done about this there is no way I can promote your website to the 50,000+ members of Facebook groups I admin.

I look forward to hearing back from you. https://www.prolific.ac/participants?ref=C4UOZOGG
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2 comments:

  1. Prolific.ac24 August 2017 at 10:50

    Thanks informing us of all this.
    The referral scheme was accidentally broken during a site upgrade, we’ve been quickly trying to put a fix together (hence the typo!). It should be working again now, and the typo will be fixed later today.
    We’ll fix broken referrals where we can.
    Our communication should have been better around this and we’ll make sure to improve it going forward.
    We have significant improvements planned for the participant site over the next few months and we’ll make sure to reach out for input and feedback!

    I should also point out that any link with ?ref=C4UOZOGG should work now. :)

    Thanks,

    The Prolific Team

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