I feel like I need to prefix the main paragraph with this; I do not think negatively of the competitions at all, they’re very fun, inspiring, and a great idea. This being said I have recently had a design removed from a competition as it was “outside the scope”. Obviously this has been quite disappointing, which will inevitably make me biased in this topic. I will link my design at the bottom for reference.
I am somewhat concerned by the strict and narrow scopes for the competitions. I believe that the spirit of the competitions is to have a wide range of creative ideas central of a fixed theme. I think that having a narrow scope will result in restricting creativity, they’ve essentially make competitors design products that either already exists, or is exactly what MakerWorld gave as an example. If you look at some of the most downloaded files in the car accessories competition; in the top 16 downloads there are: 4 Phone/tablet holders, 2 glasses clips, 2 fan mounted spinners, and 2 valve caps. essentially 10/16 of the top downloaded prints are fundamentally similar to another. In my eyes, I see that there are multiple iterations of the same idea that have dominated the top downloads. I personally will feel unsure in the future as the thought of “is my idea is close enough to the theme” will limit unique ideas, and that is worrying.
I’m wondering if anyone else has opinions about this?
I’ve not been legally allowed to drive for over a decade as my brain exploded and “we think your medically dangerous” was a great comment I was given by a specialist (I’m assuming in being a dick).
This makes it very difficult for me as I obviously don’t have a car anymore and rarely get in one.
My friends aren’t as 3D centric as I am and as such are less comfortable with letting me envision things I can attach to their cars.
Thus, I will need to create something car themed or be in the camp of many others (as you’ve pointed out); fidget spinners, generic or logo based car key rings (the only association there being the car key on the key ring unless a brand logo is thrown on), clips or holders, so on and so on.
I’m not sure if I’ll get thrown out because of this limitation.
There have been discussions elsewhere here were the concerns of other limitations like Mother’s Day which for the U.K. has already been and gone as most countries have it on different days of the year.
My Shopping cart coin storage for the car key also got removed from that contest. Despite me making a connection between car storage and my model, as I believe that shopping cart coins are often kept in the car and my model helps organizing this. Not sure how you see this but I consider my model being closer to the intention of the contest and it still got removed. In fact I think there are no more keychain items in the contest at all. Well, I think they have to draw a line somewhere and obviously we are on the outside.
The only thing I find inconsistent with that decision is that they still allowed valve caps … There I do not see a connection to “interior” or “organization”. It is hard to anticipate what they tolerate and what not.
At least for me they did not reduce my points, just silently removed the model. To me this is fair, it shows that this is a corner case and not bad intentions.
Yeah your situation is close to mine; I do agree that yours is closer as it has a related needed function.
As far as keyrings go there is currently one(19th most downloaded).
This is the scope. I’m critical of them pushing for the seat belt things because all of them I’ve seen are just imitating the seatbelt being on, which could be VERY dangerous.
My overall point being: if they’re being strict about these type of designs being included, it is worrying as they are saturated concepts with many products currently existing. And I feel like to maximise creativity and getting original ideas, they need to allow designs that are based around the theme. I’m not sure about everyone else but in my personal experience being in cars, there are usually car keys inside.
Hearing someone say “medically dangerous” is definitely a first for me!
Yeah the mothers day one confused me (as a UK citizen) and it also appeared ‘out of nowhere’ with only like 19 days left.
I do believe that many people submitted al sort of things vehicle related or tangent. I do believe the contest was specific enough that stuff for the outside shouldn’t have been accepted, like the valve caps. Some things like a tire tread checker that could go inside in a toolbox were in my mind ambiguous.
But having restrictions I think is where creativity actually shows, because valve caps and keyrings are very simple things people associate with vehicles, though some peopla did submit some very unique designs.
I think the opposite, as it’s supposed to be restricted to the cabin, this would require more creativity to come up with something unique, not restrict it. Seeing common repeated designs is not a product of the narrow scope, but rather a product of people’s creativity, or lack thereof. I absolutely think valve caps and other rim related models should be removed.
And tbh I don’t think any keychains should be allowed either. Sure your car keys are on your keychain, but I bet other keys are as well. And with many cars nowadays not even having traditional ignitions, they don’t even come out of your pocket (or purse) for many people.
But just because they’re there still, doesn’t mean they’ll win. The downloads mean nothing and has no bearing on winning models. However if they’re actively removing ones like yours, they should be removing others as well. It’s contradictory to remove some and not all, when many are so obvious and easily found due to the download counts.
But back on topic, no I don’t think narrow scopes limit creativity. It actually requires more creativity to stand out.
Models like the one you mentioned fall under useless things for me. But there are much worse things, like clips with a few grams (2,3, 4) that have been downloaded around 500 times. Although the rules state that such things should not be uploaded (which is why I have set designs to private or deleted them). But some people don’t care about the rules or whether it serves the community, they do what they want, collect download after download and eventually have a top spot in the ranking.
I totally agree! You will have more creative and interesting models if the scope is more constraint. Otherwise most of the models will probably be super generic and boring.
I don’t believe there is actually a rule against such models. There’s a tip to not upload an excessive amount of few-gram models. But it’s in relation to point redemption, not related to being allowed or disallowed on the site entirely.
If they banned all low gram models then useful things like filament spool clips and cable clips wouldn’t be available and they both very useful and often required.
Yes, that’s just it. That’s why I removed such useful things from my account with just a few grams. Because of the rules. Has that been changed in the meantime? Or rather, this concerned remixes with only minor changes (I just remembered).
