Bambu Community Town Hall Thread

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The premise of this thread is to give members of the Bambu Community Forum a place to make suggestions and discuss ideas that would help us the “Community” grow and thrive. Not a “Bambu needs to do this better for us” topic, specifically what can WE as a community do better.

There are a good number of very knowledgeable and experienced people currently part of this community that give freely of their time to help others. It is really heartwarming to see and I personally really value the community that is growing here.

Here are some questions to help provoke suggestions and discussion.

  • What is the best way to welcome people to the community?

  • How do we best nurture new people to 3d printing? What is the best way to help them avoid common pitfalls. It is easy to forget how frustrating it can be at the beginning when prints fail.

  • Is there a means of facilitating the transfer of basic 3d printing knowledge better on the forum?

  • Are there any suggestion for forum housekeeping and topic classification?

  • How do we keep the forum interesting for regulars?

I will reiterate. This is not a thread to discuss Bambu’s business practices or perceived short falls. We are all well aware there is room for improvement in some areas but these are not areas that we can easily make effective change. Please be aware that I do plan on making sure this thread stays on topic as I hope this will benefit all of us. So please try to stay on topic and be mindful of others views and suggestions.

This is our community. It is what we make it. The forum is currently largely used for troubleshooting/complaining/issues, so how do we foster a wider community that goes beyond that? How do we transform it from the complaint department to a thriving community center where we come more just to discuss, make friends, and share our hobby/passion?

I’ve been personally thinking a lot about this and I really look forward to the rest of the communities thoughts and insights.

Disclosure: This preliminary post has input from an array of prominent forum regulars who’s guidance has been very helpful.

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Here are some of my thoughts.

  • What is the best way to welcome people to the community?

Issues with the current system were summarized by @lkraus in the thread “Forum is unfriendly to new users”. My take away from this thread at the time was that we need to better educate new people to the requirements needed to post new threads. How this should happen I’m still trying to work out. A sticky at the top of the forum and multiple forum posts don’t seem to be as effective as I had hoped.

  • Are there any suggestion for forum housekeeping and topic classification?

I would like to offer users that haven’t changed their usernames from the the initial “user_1234567890” a one time chance to change their username to their choice. I find it gives the forum a more personal feel and it is easier to identify individual users this way. This could be done on a case by case basis or logged via a thread.

  • How do we keep the forum interesting for regulars?

What I really miss about oldschool forums is people sharing the projects they are working on and build logs. On this forum I personally really enjoy @Ukdavewood
" Cruise Ship Print" and " Making better use of Flush-into object in Bambu Studio " threads.
Also @Josh-3D " Things Josh is Designing/Printing" and " It’s the weekend. What are you printing?" threads.
I have some projects I want to document and post.

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Help for the newbies

I would like to see people actively helping new people with problems we have experienced previously.

For those with their first 3D printer or the first BL printer, it is a hurdle they can’t jump themselves.

In an ideal world, we could push them towards the Wiki which is a great resource. However, the Wiki doesn’t answer all the questions.

We could create a how-to guide channel that gets filled up with quick tips and tricks that could be a resource to link to directly to help.

When information on that subject changes, we update that specific part.

This way we avoid duplicating advice and potentially missing points of clarity required at the time.

Onboarding

I do not remember getting any information about the forum when I started using my first BL printer. I remember some mention of the Wiki, but I did not appreciate the quality of it until much later.

I think both things should be promoted in an email to new users.

I also suggest the same process tells people to change their username as quickly as possible or be stuck with the generic one.

Brand New Category

I suggest we have a new category called “Newbies” (or similar) and place it directly under the existing category “Announcements”.

This could be the ideal way to group the information we are talking about here.

It would help us source the information to point new users towards and for them to look through themselves.

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I have a couple of fun ideas around community building. In general would enjoy seeing a weekly what are you doing this weekend thread. I liked the one I started, and it inspired me to add some other things onto the print bed over the weekend.

One other thing I think could be nice, is a welcome package type thread/post. Something like Hey, you got an A1, here’s some community input on how to get started, what to look for, and maybe some tips and tricks. Have separate ones for separate printers. Could be a cross collaboration with the wiki, as the post would be an area to further talk and refine.

That could go into some further areas too, like a new to 3d design? Here’s a list of packages. New to the forums? Here’s what you need to know to get started to post. There’s some forums of these things, but getting organized with it would be good.

I’ve got some other ideas, but will leave that for a little later once work is done. :smiley:

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I think it would be good to have a 3D printing tips category where the topics can only be started by Admins and possibly some other select people. So there would be a topic about why it is good to clean the plate with Soap and water over IPA, ways to prevent warping and other topics about common issues that people experience.

The first post of the topic will provide all the useful tips, and if people reply to the topic with additional related information, that information gets included in the original post, or for more detailed responses, at least a summary of the information and then a link to the post for extra detail. With the exception of linking to a reply for more detail I don’t think people should be credited in the initial post because it will just clutter it. Their reply will exist below, so people will see who contributed that particular idea if they look. Also, if other discussions are made in the forum and people discover new information or tips, it would be good if that knowledge can be transferred to the relevant tip page.

Right now, this kind of information is scattered throughout the forum with some discussions missing tips found in other discussions. This would be a good way to gather all the knowledge in one place like a library for people to use.

When people come to the forum with common problems, they can be directed to the tip page related to their problem. Also, it would be nice if a banner or ad system could be used to advertise the tips.

EDIT: Just noticed that @MalcTheOracle mentioned something similar

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Sometimes the only thing a new user can relate to is a picture of their problem.

A picture of a problem with multiple links of problem solving.

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This is what I meant by updating entries as more information is gathered, more facts are known and even more materials are available to share.

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I would love to see a basic guide to uploading for users who are new to the hobby. A Do’s and don’ts sort of thing.

Also, that cruise ship print is crazy awesome. Anyone who hasn’t seen it should check it out.

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  • Specific area for newbie questions heavily moderated for off-topic/snide remarks.
    • A template for messages in this newbie area that helps provide relevant info, pics, etc.
  • Flow chart for troubleshooting (community maintainable via wiki?)
  • Compile some Frequently Made Topics - what is purge tower, why is my print lifting, etc. All that stuff we went through the first few weeks.
  • A dedicated section for CAD discussion, help, approaches, advice, etc. Subforum for OpenSCAD with the new support MW has added
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Great initiative @JonRaymond

From personal experience of using other Discourse forums (and moderating them) what helped a lot is to make it as easy for others as possible and have clear guides for new users.

The implementations we are using on a DIY electric skateboard forum might not translate 1:1 to this hobby but can be reworked to fit.

1. A general thread for all kinds of questions.

These don’t have to be strictly bambu or 3D printing related. How do I do X, how do I find Y, does this look like YY? This also helps new accounts that can’t create new threads due to spam protection, and allows them to still have a place to ask a question that isn’t just the “welcome to the forum” thread.

Similar to my Public chat Thread which is more of conversations thread or a place to move to when it’s becoming off-topic on another thread.

2. A “Pictures and Nothing Else” Thread.

Here users can show off - whatever they want (as long as it follows the Bambus TOS and guidelines, of course), but as the name implies: No text allowed.
If users want to reply to a picture, they can use the “Reply to Pictures and nothing else” thread. This keeps the main image thread clean of any text, and users can talk in the reply thread. With tens of thousands of messages over the years, I can say that this has been a great success.

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3. Is a direct response to your projects idea.

We have a category named DIY Builds
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These act as a sort of diary. Some write up their project after it is finished, others write it as they go along, which allows them to incorporate feedback from other users.

4. Wikis and references

We all know and love the Bambulab wiki, having a similar kind of wiki for this forum can make things a lot easier. With a good formatting system, having links or information for all kinds of things

Examples from the my DIY Forum.

All in one schematic diagrams (This needs some new formatting)

glossary of terms

5. Pinning Threads.

Keep certain threads that help newcomers (and regulars) visible and easily accessible, such as wikis or the Questions thread (see #1).
You don’t like that this thread is pinned? Unpin it!

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6. QOL changes

Reducing the minimum character limit would be a good example. Wanting to stop responses like “ok” might be noble, but unnecessarily lengthening them with words that add nothing makes it less effective.

Need to rewrite some stuff, that’s coming later.

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How do we best nurture new people to 3d printing?

Reading several posts, it seems that some people new to 3D printing have difficulty choosing among Bambu printers. The comparison tables on the site are good and present information that familiar-to-experienced customers, but I think some more work could be done for the newcomer.

The tags “Ideal,” “Not recommended,” etc. are helpful. In addition, perhaps a slideshow/catalog of prints that are possible would help someone make a decision.

Slideshow could include:

  • Someone holding a printed cube to illustrate just how big the print area really is. For 180x180x180 and 256x256x256,
  • Closeup photos of the same model, same filament, print on each machine.
  • Print time videos showing the same models printed simultaneously on side-by-side machines.
  • Printed examples of what can be done with a filament and what can’t be done, i.e. show PLA, PETG, ABS car dashboard accessories (the point here being that PLA wouldn’t be recommended).
  • Video of someone removing supports from a single color print vs. someone removing support structures when using an AMS with support material.

Perhaps it comes down to a 3D Printing Introduction site that educates new users and always refers to Bambu printers and filaments.

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I agree with these three points in particular. The process being described here is traditionally known as “Curated Information.” This involves routinely combing through topics for on-topic content, preventing thread hijacking, and ensuring the quality of posts. I realize that some of these descriptions are subjective, but to paraphrase the late US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart (1915-1985), “I’ll know it when I see it.”

A curated newbie or FAQ section can be very beneficial, even for experienced 3D enthusiasts. Often, I forget a solution that was once discussed and then rediscover it in an old thread. Sometimes, it was even in a thread I participated in where an alternative solution didn’t fit my use case then but later was exactly what I needed. I often search for threads with great answers to new printing challenges, only to dig for them. A curated section would really help.

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  • What is the best way to welcome people to the community?

This is one of those subjective topics since there is no one answer solution to this. The best way to welcome users to the community is by being available to answer questions and guide them to where they need to be. We have a mix of new users usually starting off their adventure here by asking questions, sharing that they got a new Bambu printer, asking for help, or jumping on a hot topic to share their thoughts.

Some focus on figuring out how we can provide foundational knowledge to new users such as; Forum rules and etiquette, basic forum user post privileges, basic user troubleshooting, and where to look for help.

  • How do we best nurture new people to 3d printing? What is the best way to help them avoid common pitfalls. It is easy to forget how frustrating it can be at the beginning when prints fail.

It’s interesting that the Bambu Wiki contains so many of the common issues and questions that users have, but no one really reads it. I reference that site all the time to answer questions for others or for myself. I think that’s mostly due to that no one really knows where it’s at or don’t realize the wealth of knowledge that’s in there.

Would be worth maybe having a newbie corner where we can provide stickied topics that cover: printing 101 and troubleshooting 101. These can contain some of the most common topics and links to useful wiki pages, topics, and videos that users can utilize.

  • Is there a means of facilitating the transfer of basic 3d printing knowledge better on the forum?

Maybe having new topic category that covers printing knowledge domains. CAD design, filament drying and storage, printing environment (fumes, temperature, humidity, mitigation, etc), model slicing, ,etc.

  • Are there any suggestion for forum housekeeping and topic classification?

Honestly having active moderators would be the best solution here. Keeping topics on subject and moving them to the appropriate forum categories. A good example is when you merged two similar topics into a single thread, that helped keep the noise down and topics focused.

  • How do we keep the forum interesting for regulars?

I can’t speak for everyone, but I enjoy helping people when I can, so there will probably always be entertainment for me. I will say that @Josh-3D idea on having topics focused on what projects we’re working on is a super idea. I thoroughly enjoy seeing the things he’s been designing. I can imagine how that can get people fired up to start their own projects.

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What a great initiative @JonRaymond :smiley:

Thinking (and reading) a bit about these points, my main reasons for coming to the forum regularly are:

  • Satisfying my “Helpers-syndrome”
  • Looking at people showing their skills (Thank you @Ukdavewood and @Josh-3D in particular)
  • Stumbling across things that are new to me or where my background is limited, encouraging me to try stuff that I did not realize are NOT impossible even for me
  • Occasionally looking for a solution myself (but search is slowly becoming a bit hit and miss with so many threads now)

Things that drive me away are:

  • My printer having been buggered
  • People not being nice to me
  • People not being nice to others

Looking at

I remember my own start into the forum. Having little experience with them, I paid particular attention to the very first DiscoBot message. So that is probably where a pointer would be helpful for newcomers. But I am not sure if we can change the wording there.
The second thing I noticed prominently was essentially the start screen. Newcomers desperate to find a solution for their teething problem tend to… well, not be in too attentive of anything directly related to their problem. So a pointer for newcomers would need to be right there, at the top of the front page.

Is it still there? To my shame I have to admit that I looked but did not see it.

They scroll down far to fast.

Yes! Or a sticker right above the threads. That is where even desparate people will need to look before highjacking a thread.

The Wiki can be changed by us as well, can’t it? I find it quite useful now but as a newcomer looking for printing solutions, what is missing/not easy to find is something like this 3D Printing Troubleshooting: All Problems & Solutions | All3DP. Quite dated example but it was useful to me at the time. Just like:

But perhaps as a wiki? Provided that we can make it obvious and easy to access.

Same here. But without the rediscovering bit as more threads appear :joy:

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I certainly agree with that - I sometimes find when I am searching for an issue - I find my own posts with the issue and the solution I last used.

I never knew that - not sure where it is - just tried to look for it but couldn’t find it. Would be happy to move my two long threads to some sort of DIY builds or ideally a build logs area. I guess the build logs could somehow link in with maker world.

I wonder if somewhere creating a category or an individual post for each wiki item - with a direct link to it would help - because at least then if you search for a problem it might point you fairly quickly at the wiki.

I definitely agree with this - I would like to see somewhere to post Fusion and Blender multi colour and 3d printing tips and question etc. also with some good links to useful information and learning.

I think some sort of FAQ would help with this - plus maybe checking that posts that answer frequent issue well come up high in search results.

It would be good if there was a way to somehow filter ‘latest’ entries - not sure if that is technically possible on a discourse forum - for example whilst I am very supportive of Makerworld and have gained a lot personally from it, I would prefer it personally if maybe the maker world part of the community was somehow separated, and perhaps more closely connected to maker world itself.

Look like very interesting threads - I would also find a few more of these interesting.

Hopefully my main two threads are of some interest, I find keeping a log useful as a reference. - there is a mute option near the bottom below the reply button incase anyone hasn’t spotted it;)

Other thoughts.
This community is one of 5 places that I am aware of for information exchange and discussion.

  1. The Main official Facebook Groups and lots of other separate Facebook groups. - There seem to be a lot more active users on the Facebook groups - quite a few of which are not aware of this community - so I wonder if there is a better way to promote it on there - maybe with the occasional post on the Facebook group pointing people to useful threads on this community.

  2. Reddit - which occasionally comes up in google searches for me - but doesn’t seem to be particularly active

  3. The Bambustudio GITHUB issues list - which seems to be pretty active and has quite a lot of useful information buried in the discussions as well as all of the enhancement requests and details of what people are working on. So some way of pointing community users at GITHUB would be useful.

  4. Discord - I have occasionally tried it - but don’t personally quite get Discord - I prefer the more structured threads in these sort of discourse forums.

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I have never and will never use any Facebook resources.

Their security and privacy issues are far too pervasive to risk going there. I come from a strong security background.

I know many people who share the same views. This means many people, tech-savvy people will not add to or gain from anything it provides.

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Sorry, with “we” i mean the other discourse forum i am on :laughing:

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Yup. I signed up in August of 2008 shortly after Facebook hit the scene and went viral and deleted my account in September 2008 after I got a glimpse of the sewer hole of intellect that place was.

As do I and it always amazes me just how stupid some people are with their personal identity. When I hear about people getting Phished or Scammed, the first thing I look at is; how much of their personal lives did the expose on Social Media. Then there is the part we don’t see. How much of our Internet Movements are tracked across websites by Facebook?

Once again, we agree. I worked in Cyber security field for 15 years and I know no tech-savvy folks who don’t go onto Social Media without suiting up behind VPNs, virtual email addresses and browser obfuscators.

I’ve been running a DNS-hole server on my LAN for about 5 years. Many may know of it, it’s called a Pi-hole and runs on a $5 Raspberry Pi. It’s fascinating to watch the real-time logs and see how many times websites call out resources on 3rd party sites that have no business knowing what I am doing.

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In an attempt to circle back to the topic.

There have been so many good points made already! Thank you for all your input. I guess the next step is to summarize everything that has been brought up and convert them to action points.

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Another idea I was thinking about was a community choice award to go alongside the contest. I’m not sure how easy/practical that would be to implement, but I think it would be cool as a community.

Could have like ten trusted community members picked each contest, that don’t have an entry, to formulate a list of the top 5 entries. Would then run a poll and open it up to a vote to everyone!

As far as what prize comes of it. A badge. Low stakes (family friendly, we don’t need no high steaks). I don’t know if we could poke bambu on that one, but it would be cool if community choice award winners had a tag on their item stating as such. Or I guess, we could just come up with a graphic that we could authorize the use of, and then the thread where it was voted on would act as the verification.

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