Cracking down, but what determines Allowable models?

There has been a notification come through lately about the amount of what is deemed as inappropriate/NSFW models, on Makerworld, and that the moderators/controllers are going to have a crackdown on this.

This has been on many different posts a lively debate, along with use of AI, clickbait models etc. so hopefully without going over the same tired old ground, and dragging up old debates, I would like to “refresh” those debates and ask who actually is it that decides what is allowed and what is not allowed, who gets penalised for posting certain images, where others with similar images don’t?

Now, I have produced a few models based on the “ship girls” from Azur Lane. For those that don’t know this is a hugely popular gatcha game, featuring nubile young ladies, in various forms of dress, named after the warships of not only WW1, and WW2, but throughout history, that battle and quest their way in the game. So naturally, as the game itself features some images that are risqué, my models can be too. But does this mean that ANY model due to the nature of the game, not be allowed as it will be seen to as breaking the new rules set out by Makerworld??

Same with One Piece, now I play OPTC, and use some of the images from that game to create images. One of which been Nami. Now Nami is infamous for her bikini outfit, and windmill/tangerine tattoo (as well as a couple of other more noticeable things). But having a woman in a bikini model, could now be classed as NSFW, even though this is an iconic outfit for Nami. So would Nami be banned in the future, regardless of outfits, just in case the bikini one slipped through?? There are hundreds of examples throughout the anime world of this, but not only the risqué images, but of images depicting violence/blood/gore, all could fall under this banner - yet a lot of commercially available figurines depict worse that that found on Makerworld.

I recently created a union jack flag, fridge magnet, that said fly your flag - could this now be banned as it could be seen as offensive to other countries?? A bit extreme may be, but is it really??

Who is it that determines that a cartoon character showing a middle finger is OK, but a duck doing it isn’t?

I agree that there should be a crackdown on things posted on Makerworld (yet we still have printable ■■■ toys disguised as say pepper and salt pots). But there needs to be consistency and balance. We need to know before hand if our model is likely to be flagged up or not. We need examples of what is accepted and what isn’t. Because to be honest it is such a massive grey area, with so much controversy and debate surrounding it, I don’t think they will ever get it right.

4 Likes

Not only that, but you will get into arguments about whether it’s called the Union Flag or Union Jack.

edit In reality flags will likely get a “political“ label allowing users to hide them if they want

edit In tabletop wargaming we have problems with certain emblems that used by real military units, both past and current, and therefore “correct” to display on a model, but are considered offensive otherwise.

I doubt you will see this as it allows people to push the bounty. A grey area as you call it keeps the majority of people from trying to push the bounty. It’s pretty simple in my opinion. If you think there is any chance your model might get taken down, don’t post it?

I for one am happy that this issue is being addressed. If you want to post NSFW stuff then there are lots of other places on the Internet to do so.

13 Likes

Bambu is positioning themselves in the market to provide “3D printing for the whole family” - put simply, the models you’re talking about aren’t family friendly, and they absolutely run the risk of being taken down.

I honestly don’t understand the reason why someone would print figurines like those, so I have trouble seeing the value they bring to the community.

As Jon said, there are other places they would be welcome, they should go there.

12 Likes

many anime lovers buy a 3d print to print their favorite characters and paint them . Those rules are not clear at all, why just dont enable nsfw like before and punish only who dont mark it when upload? Also you cant flag nsfw politicians , thats censorship based on what rules.

1 Like

I don’t think we need an extensive list of examples. Yeah, probably right, that’d be more so for the people that want to push the boundaries. If you’re needing to push those boundaries though, then Makerworld probably isn’t the site to be posting to.

I think for most people it’s pretty easy to avoid crossing that line. It’s not that difficult to understand what might be offensive at not. A lot of the people that come on here that complain about their models being dinged as such, they’re just playing games. They know it is, can be, they just want to push it as if it isn’t. They want to skirt the line, or play the whole I’m not touching you game, type of attitude.

Like I wouldn’t feel comfortable inviting a family of 4 into my home, with two small kids, and have big mellon anime status all over my place. I wouldn’t walk into a target and start flipping families off and then going it’s no offensive! It’s just the middle finger! Most of us would recognize that as not being appropriate.

It’s one thing to find stuff funny, even crude humor, but I think people need to face the reality that it isn’t going to be appropriate everywhere. I think people need to face the reality too that the 3d printing space is becoming more consumerized, with a larger audience. A lot of traditional 3d printer peeps probably got a lot more into that crude humor than the average consumer, but in a world where moms and kids are printing, it’s not as appropriate.

I think especially when we’re talking about Bambu and Makerworld. They are the biggest ones pushing into the consumer space. It’s crazy to me still how few people want to come to terms with this. They fight it constantly, but it’s like. Makerworld isn’t thingiverse, it isn’t printables. Makerworld isn’t a model repository, a dumping ground. It’s more like a consumer market place.

6 Likes

Imagine how the English legal system works (not specfically the country, but the name of the legal system used by UK, USA etc).

They understand it’s impossible to define certain concepts in words, or that the situation might change too fast to leglislate, so it’s set by precedents (a court decides, and future similar cases are encouraged or required to follow the origianl), and these predecents are made public, allowing people to understand how the law is interpreted by seeing these examples of what passed or failed the legal tests.

“Grey areas” are frowned upon in that justice system as it does not provide people any kind of certaincy by which they can know how to live their lives.

edit Basically “grey areas” in law encourge corruption and arbitrtary rulings, and are not desired in countries that consider themselves to have righteous system of justice.

edit they need to eliminated to ensure people do not live “in fear” of unknown or abitrary rules.

If Bambu is trying to be family friendly, NSFW doesn’t accomplish anything as 1) Items are inevitably not marked accordingly and 2) what stops a 12-year old kid from just clicking on the item and still being able to access the model?

4 Likes

Corporations are 112% gray areas to anyone outside of them. They only release information that is convenient for them, makes them look good.

6 Likes

it is difficult, a fully clothed anime characters that kids watch all over the world can be marked as nsfw. A politician that is elected and on television all the time , nsfw. But there is an entire section of adult toys on makerworld. those are fine because they bring money?

2 Likes

a 12 old kid should not left alone in any website . But today seems like parents would not do their job

4 Likes

I’m sorry :man_shrugging:

I don’t think ■■■ toys should be on Makerworld either :man_shrugging:

Big ol’ melons popping out being held by a thin piece of string is not what I’d call fully clothed.

So what? That doesn’t negate Makerworld from wanting to make their site more family friendly. I don’t want to log into Makerworld and feel like I walked into some pervert’s wet-dream.

8 Likes

An example of the problem is when I logged into Makerworld at work the other day to show a college Josh’s amazing crane model a bunch of barely clothed figures showed up on the front page. I wasn’t impressed.

4 Likes

More deja vu…

I understand MW wanting to be more family friendly but at the same time I do not understand why having a section of NSFW models is a problem if they are hidden.

But its their company to do with as they please. There is always cults if you want to print the real dirty stuff.

Personally, I think those ■■■ toy models should be removed.

But the line gets very thin with most of the anime stuff. I dont have kids, but If I did, thats not something I want them to see.

Of course the people in that community will defend it though.

5 Likes

:heart_eyes:

Yeah, this is kind of the crux of it. It doesn’t bother me much because there’s a bunch of sites out there that host 3d printable content, and there’s a number of sites that are focused on specific things. Since we have that competition, it doesn’t really feel like that big of an issue to me if Makerworld wants to curate their site a little more specifically.

I wouldn’t take any issue with this. I’m surprised they don’t let people tick their own content as NSFW anymore. I guess if they’re trying to remove all NSFW stuff eventually? Eh.

Maybe its an issue with having to provide proof of age? Or the worry of getting tangled up in that mess. It’s easier to have an environment where age verification is a non-issue? :thinking:

Part of me thinks too that it stems from their Chinese roots. They are trying to juggle what’s acceptable across the whole world while also still keeping it under control for their domestic obligations (for better or worse, we don’t need to get into the deeper issues of that). I think pushing makerworld to be much more family friendly would help on all of those fronts.

I enjoy a number of anime shows. There is certainly a level of gooner material involved though with a lot of anime. It’s dodgy, for sure.

4 Likes

thats why there is the nsfw checkmark

3 Likes

Yep! And only having content that the whole world approves of is a tough nut to crack.

The way I look at is people aren’t going to the mat to be allowed to walk into Walmart and start yelling obscenities. The store would call the police and have the offender removed as is their right.

MakerWorld is Bambu’s property and if they don’t want NSFW stuff - however they choose to define it - that is totally their prerogative. Anyone who disagrees can always set up their own repository for such models. There is absolutely nothing stopping them.

This is not a free speech issue. For one thing there is no 1st Amendment in China and that actually only applies to speech against the government in the US. NSFW is not speech criticizing government.

MW is private property and Bambu is free to manage it any way they choose. They could decide they will only host fidget spinners and it would be the exact same argument. Their website. Their rules.

4 Likes

actually they make rules but ignore international rules because if you remove all the copyright material they will have almost nothing. Ok only fidget spinners, but write it down , is not hard “only fidget spinner allowed” , but they keep making grey rules . Can someone pleeeeease tell me why there is 100000 adult toys on the site, and dont tell me they need to be reported because i reported many things and nothing changed. And also everyone is so offended by nsfw but when you look the downloads numbers you wonder who is downloading so much of this stuff? There is a lot because there is a lot of requests.

1 Like

This discussion is tedious, it’s no different than arguing over a speeding ticket because other people who are speeding didn’t get a ticket. You were still speeding.

Go read the model submission guidelines.

“Sexualized or suggestive content” is not allowed.

You’re speeding.

Life isn’t fair, let’s move on.

5 Likes

I expect this to be addressed but you must understand that this isn’t something that can happen overnight. It will take time.

3 Likes