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studentoffortune.com and others
Karel Kohout
Member #5,968
June 2005
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Hello,

does anybody have any experience with this "paid students help"? Are there any other sites worth trying? It may be a nice source of money, but I'm not really sure if it works...

(note: the system seems to be something like eBay, somebody asks a question and offers a certain amount of money paid through PayPal for the answer)

Samuel Henderson
Member #3,757
August 2003
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This sounds interesting. I've heard of similar systems, namely for essays and reports. I even thought of selling some of my stuff for money, but decided against it for fear of being ripped off (and/or rejected because I was only in 1st year college at the time).

From the studentoffortune site it does not look like the amount of money you recieve is really worth it. The highest earner has only made $~400 or so. Granted, I don't know how much time he has spent on arriving at that sum.

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Paul whoknows: Why is this thread still open?
Onewing: Because it is a pthread: a thread for me to pee on.

Michael Jensen
Member #2,870
October 2002
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wait... $400... for answering a question?

Edit: "Plus, we have kittens, how can you say no to that?" -- it would have been funnier in writing... but she presented it wrong... The kitty ears were really cute though! :D

studentoffortune
Member #8,494
April 2007

Hi,

I'm Chris, and I'm one of the folks behind SoF. I figured I'd chime in and answer a couple of your questions. (I promise not to make any more posts about the site :) )

We're pretty new, so people are only beginning to really answer questions and get paid. Allegro has more users than we do. b_h, our top earner, has earned about $400 so far. The cool thing is, a good portion of that money comes from selling the same solutions over and over again. Anyone can buy the solution you posted, even if they didn't ask the question in the first place. As a result, you can earn more than the original bounty.

Here's an example: http://www.studentoffortune.com/question/313/Java_Payroll_Program You'll see that b_h posted a solution for $9 and sold it 6 times. After our cut (this mostly covers the PayPal fees of $0.29 + 2.9%), he earned $44.28 for his solution. Since we place well on Google, anyone looking for that question will find his solution. You can see everything that b_h has answered, and how much he's made, here: http://www.studentoffortune.com/user/b_h/questions_answered

We also let folks upload completed assignments, too. So, if you've just completed assignment, you can upload each question and answer with a bounty. We'll post it on our site and get it indexed in Google. If a bunch of folks come around and buys it - great - if not, well, it didn't take that long to post. :)

Anyway, thanks for reading. Have a great day!

Also, Karel, much love for the Dr. Strangelove avatar.

Samuel Henderson
Member #3,757
August 2003
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That sounds cool. I'll check it out (again)

=================================================
Paul whoknows: Why is this thread still open?
Onewing: Because it is a pthread: a thread for me to pee on.

Simon Parzer
Member #3,330
March 2003
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That sounds really bad. Nobody should be selling information. When I'm looking for a question on Google and I land at some page SELLING the answer I ... >:(

Besides, there are free services like answers.yahoo.com and Lycos iQ (Europe only). I'd rather ask there than at your weird site.

Yeah, I know that the motivation behind answering a question is much bigger when there's money involved, but it's just the wrong way.

It's just like asking some guy on the street "Excuse me, how can I get to..." and he answers "I know how, but only if you give me 10 dollars". I would consider this man an asshole.

Samuel Henderson
Member #3,757
August 2003
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The funny thing is that I can see myself using google and other free tools to build a solution to sell!

1. Find interesting question
2. Google, wikipedia, etc..
3. Rephrase,
4. Add own thoughts
5. Profit!!!

Edit:
Hmm... this does in fact seem to be conflicting with the open source / open information movement. :-/ But I like money and right now I can use all the spare suppliments I can get my hands on :(

=================================================
Paul whoknows: Why is this thread still open?
Onewing: Because it is a pthread: a thread for me to pee on.

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
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Simon: do you realize this is basically a homework cheating network? It's not like someone is asking a general question. They want specific answers to specific homework problems.

If someone came here and asked you to do his homework, would you? If he offered you $50,000 to do it, would you?

Simon Parzer
Member #3,330
March 2003
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Quote:

If someone came here and asked you to do his homework, would you? If he offered you $50,000 to do it, would you?

It would be evil, taking his money AND preventing him from gaining knowledge, but whatever. Sure.

I didn't realize that it was about a cheating network. I know some sites that work like a help forum, but you have to pay to see the answers.

Still, I think it's not quite right.

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
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Quote:

It would be evil, taking his money AND preventing him from gaining knowledge, but whatever. Sure.

So now, of course, you've established your price. The people using the site just have a much lower one.

Money usually speaks louder than morals. Like you, I don't think it's right either. But I'd do it for a good enough price.

Derezo
Member #1,666
April 2001
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A similar site:
http://www.kasamba.com/

My cousin suggested I give it a try. She was out of work because of a back injury and made some decent money there giving tarot readings. She told me she uses it for an hour or so a day and made $600 in one month.
I haven't tried it yet, but I did sign up. I was planning to use it on the slow days at work.

"He who controls the stuffing controls the Universe"

Matthew Leverton
Supreme Loser
January 1999
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Michael Jensen
Member #2,870
October 2002
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I can't find you -- am I blind? I event went by name through the Ds -- I assume since the title is part of the screen name you'd be on "D" ... meh. Making any money?

... wow $8/min ... that's more than some people make an hour... O.O

Karel Kohout
Member #5,968
June 2005
avatar

To the topic - studentoffortune seems to be somewhat strange - for very specific and very long questions you may definitely get a lot of money (relatively), but for shorter ones users don't seem to get paid. If you receive sufficient answers and just read the previews, you can guess the rest without buying anything.

The cheating - I think it is OK, I believe homework is used to help a student to study, so if you cheat, you will have harder time preparing for the test. Definitely, I won't write anything like essay for other person, with or without payment, but I don't mind selling e.g.math exercises.

Samuel Henderson said:

The funny thing is that I can see myself using google and other free tools to build a solution to sell!

1. Find interesting question
2. Google, wikipedia, etc..
3. Rephrase,
4. Add own thoughts
5. Profit!!!

Edit:
Hmm... this does in fact seem to be conflicting with the open source / open information movement. :-/ But I like money and right now I can use all the spare suppliments I can get my hands on :(

No, it's supporting the idea of open source - at least studentoffortune is. You get the whole answer, not just the result (source code vs binary), you have access to the sources (for example similar books) and you only pay for the work (finding facts from sources you have, similar to getting money from servicing computers with open source software installed).

piccolo
Member #3,163
January 2003
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o i see what this is. the under skilled people that have good jobs can used the skilled people that are tiring to make end meat. this way the under skilled people get credit for some thing they did not come up with and the skilled person gets a fraction of their hourly wage.

edit:
i guess its cool hopefully ill get the job of the under skilled person.

wow
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