The Verification badge is designed for creators with accounts on multiple platforms to authenticate their accounts, as there have been incidents of fake accounts in the past.
During the early stage of the MakerWorld Beta test, we directly contacted some creators and asked them to upload their designs to MakerWorld to enhance the design quality and to expand model quantities. Recently, we have been giving out verification to these creators.
In the future, we will gradually provide this badge to creators who have won a Top 3 award in contests and are consistently active on MakerWorld.
If you wish to apply for the Verification badge, please send the following information to models@makerworld.com:
Links to your accounts on other 3D printing platforms or social media.
Add your MakerWorld link to your 3D printing platforms or social media to authenticate your accounts.
We will manually review the applications based on the authenticity of the accounts and the design quality and quantity on MakerWorld, which may take up to 10 business days.
Makerworld already verified my printables account before importing my designs.
For this “official” verification batch, I think it’s borderline to expect me to constantly advertise Makerworld on my other accounts - especially since Printables is certainly not enthusiastic about it.
And if winning a competition is an additional requirement for this batch, the number of verified accounts is likely to be limited.
I don’t think they’re saying winning is a requirement. Only that winners in the contest will be verified. I imagine it’s more to do with verifying the legitimacy of the winning entry.
Funny enough, I want to be able to add a link to my makerworld profile on printables, but printables wont let me. I find that kind of annoying.
It’s not entirely clear if this status is about conveying prestige like the old blue check mark on Twitter (now X) or about authenticating an account.
If it’s about authenticating an account, there are other easier ways. Since the MakerWorld acct is the same as the one on BambuLab.com, if the account has been used to purchase a printer/parts, then sending out an email to the acct owner for them to confirm that they have indeed set up the MW acct will be enough. Will MW allow creators to get the Verified status via this simpler way instead of having to involve another platform?
Yeah, but someone can still purchase a 3d printer and then go and try and upload models they stole from somewhere else. Granted, I’m sure most people trying to game the system have throw away accounts.
I don’t think it’s about prestige. I think it’s about creating trust and authenticity. As a user of makerworld, there’s always that question in my mind, is this the real creator, or just someone trying to cash in?
The announcement also included the line “authenticity of the accounts and the design quality and quantity on MakerWorld” So, I think part of it too is helping highlight designers that are bringing real contributions to the community.
From a designer’s perspective, sure there’s a bit of prestige. I think from MakerWorld’s perspective though, it’s about creating authenticity and trust with it’s users.
FWIW, I’ve never been invited to Makerworld during beta or afterwards. My accounts on Thingiverse and Printables sucked (and still suck). I hadn’t been treating them seriously for a long time so the quality wasn’t polished by any stretch of the imagination.
This is what I think caused me to be verified because like I said, I wasn’t in the beta batch or even “invited.”
Regardless, if this leads to more visibility for authentic designers and more trust for the users, then I think it’s a good idea. However, the process and qualifications should be fair for everyone. If you’re a designer who uploads consistently good quality models, even if you don’t have a third party account, then I think you should be able to apply.
Having a Verified acct doesn’t stop a cheater from cheating and there are many ways to cheat as shown in MW. But it will help to reduce the number of fake accts and bot accts. Those accts are used to create fake downloads and rating. No measure will ever completely stop cheating but what MW can do is to make it harder and harder to cheat.
Giving contest winners the Verified status can be an effort to add more visible perceived prestige to winning the contest which will encourage more creators to participate and publish more new models on MW.
That combined with the #2 requirement (2. Add your MakerWorld link to your 3D printing platforms or social media to authenticate your accounts) seem to suggest this is designed at least partly to pull in/ create more new models on MW. But it can have some unintended effect: Since the word verified means authentic, accts not having this designation can be perceived by the wider user community as not authentic ie, fake. MakeWorld should keep this possibility in mind and have a path for MW’s own homegrown creators to get this status as well. Having a certain quality and quantity requiremnet is fine.
Yes, exactly my meaning. Designers who only design on MakerWorld need a way to get verified as well. Perhaps set a minimum amount of models posted to their profile before they’re allowed to apply? This way, the reviewers won’t get swamped with one or two model designers.
If I were MW, I would use Verified for what it normally means: having been authenticated. This status would be mainly for the purpose of combating fake/bot accounts. On Twitter (X) where there are hundreds of millions of accounts aunthenticating an account is no small feat, but here in MW if an acct has been used to buy something, it’s real.
I would give contest winners a Contest Winner badge. Give creators different levels badge based on the quanitity of their models (except creators who made very poor quality models won’t get any). Reward creators who have reached both the quantity and quality threshold with a feature (which they are already doing, even if some controversially). If MW wants to provide more incentive to attract more creators from other platforms, maybe giving them a one time sign-on bonus or something. But otherwise, treat all creators the same and hold them to the same standard regardless if they publish on other platform or not.
Bambulab came to me to beta test makerworld. I had a few issues with a people uploading unusual profiles for my designs. For safety reasons, I have disabled my files and will not be uploading any more until I am verified.
This is how I interpret or understand it (this is my opinion):
This is not just about pure authentication. Authentication in the sense that there is a real person behind an account. It is checked whether someone provides designs that are suitable for Makerworld (apparently good printable designs). Many prints, downloads and followers should also be very helpful. Last but not least, the presentation of the designs will also be a deciding factor. If everything fits together, an attempt will be made to verify the real person behind an account (or perhaps not, as this could be difficult). However, the primary aim seems to be to assign several accounts on the network to one person (there were good reasons for this). If everything fits together and Bambulab says “yes”, then the badge is awarded.
Perhaps the misunderstanding for some users also has to do with the fact that we in Europe and the USA, England etc. (i.e. “the West”) are not used to receiving badges or awards for certain “pleasing” behaviour. We would then define it differently or clearly separate things from each other: Authentication is authentication. And a designer who pleases Bambulab very much would be a special “Makerworld Designer”, but I find it difficult to find a “badge” for this, because of the equality of all designers and the recognition of all work, which takes time (sometimes much more time and cost than it would be worth, for the people who do not get the “pleasure” of the badge … e.g. weeks of designing a model, for little recognition).
I feel this 100%, modeling isn’t easy especially 3D sculpting & CAD techniques.
Spent roughly around 5 1/2 weeks on my latest release a 4 -to- 1 module but ya know someone puts bunny ears on a benchy deserves a featured badge.
I’m willing to play the game but I also won’t stoop to a level of where I loose the mindset of how I got here. I want to stand out for my skill set not for likes or points
