Hello!
I have some of my designs cutomizables. I think this is more easy to be useful to the community (i.e. corner protections that’s only useful if meets the size of your “corner”).
But I think that the use of the Customizable button don’t generate points for downloading.
Does anyone know if this is correct?
TIA (sorry for my bad english. It’s not my native language)
Yes, it does, and according to makerworld, they can now even track the prints.
Most of my designs are parametric designs, and I had no problem getting the downloads.
I think there is still a limit of 2 downloads per user/model, and users need to download the generated file
MW only counts one print/download per model per user who performed it. If a user prints or downloads your model more than once, only the first is counted.
Only 5 prints/downloads are counted by a user each day. If the user printed your model after printing or downloading 5 others, yours will not be counted.
Thanks for clarifying that. That sucks!!! What is the purpose of this limitation?
This turned out far longer than I planned, get a drink and strap in. It is history time!
It was added as one of the many limitations included in the revised point system.
The activity should be included in the analytics, but, as to points, a large number of downloads and prints are simply never included in the numbers that go towards point generation.
There is logic in it (from the MW perspective), the bad actors” (as I call them), were running download farms where they would upload a tiny model and then download it repeatedly all day, every day. Each one triggering a value to be counted in the points system.
The “good actors” you and I, would print a couple of things and get two downloads, they would get hundreds in the same day.
Sometime ago, even failed prints were counted, so they could start huge prints, cancel them and restart the process. This was the same time as a model with 20 plates would count 20 prints/downloads even if only one was started and never finished.
Some popular models at the time were only popular because of this. They were large with lots of plates, sometimes even providing excellent models, but, their numbers and popularity were inflated by the “bad actors” printing, stopping and repeating those models.
In reality, MW couldn’t sustain handing out points to the “bad actors” indefinitely and had to look for ways to limit their exposure. They introduced many different caps to make it inefficient for them to profit from trying to game the system. They still do game the system, it just costs MW significantly less to deal with it.
As a consequence the decent people, the ones who added to the community with designs or who benefited from the community by printing work provided were hit and hit hard.
The initial points model made the early adopters very rich in the sense of turning points into gift cards which in turn was converted into filament, spares and printers.
All of that is still possible, it just takes much longer and you need a decent number of models or one or two extremely successful ones.
It is possible to but a printer with the points you earn, I have. It just takes way longer.
I was annoyed when the old system went and the new, significantly less beneficial system took over. I had only just started to get a little bit of traction with my models and suddenly the points I was earning had more than halved over night. I wanted a piece of the richer pie, it was full of butter and sugar. Now my pie was tart and sour.
In reality though, something had to give. If it didn’t, the whole system would collapse under the weight of the theft. As that is what it was fraud resulting in theft. They stole from MW and as a result, they stole from the rest of us.
This is part of the reason a dedicated few of us report any bad actions by users, to stop the next “bad actors” before they start.
I improved my model presentation ps, I improved the models I provided and I found a few models that turns out I am good at making that my followers really love. I have gained some success and that has turned into points.
Having a few of my models in the featured collections and one featured has been great. I do pretty well now. I have gained a significant for free. A lot of hard work got me here though.
I can only wonder how those who are far more successful than I aim are doing.
I imagine they are pretending they are Scrooge McDuck diving into their piles of free filament.
I couldn’t have said it better. Went through this exact same timeline. When they cut off the flow of butter and sugar earlier this year, that was a huge bummer and my motivation balloon was popped. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy making stuff and sharing it with others for free, but when you know how much filament gets sold because of your model and that isn’t reciprocated, it indeed left a sour taste and attitude for awhile. But Bambu didn’t wait long and came through with a fair system to reward those that drive their filament and machine sales. The boost system has been great and has motivated me to spend more time making sure everything is as good as it can be for the user, taking better photos and writing better descriptions. Following up on comments and messages. I’m still a better idea guy than I am a 3D modeler, but the motivation level to grow and improve my skills and presentation has been restored.
Good explanation! One think that would be very satisfying for me is to see a report of the real download/print numbers separated for them download/print events that generated points.
Example:
Real downloads/prints: 150/79
Point generating download/prints: 10/5
Pats self in back. I’m great me.
You mean like those game shows (Bullseye for British audiences) that say “look what you could’ve won” to the losers.
I like honesty in data, without it, it is meaningless.
Hi everyone, I have a question.
Are you sure that customizer downloads count as real downloads?
This is one of my models that I released yesterday:
When I add up the “Customize” actions and model downloads, it totals more than 10, but I haven’t received the corresponding points.
Could it be that customizer downloads are counted separately (or sums duplicates) and don’t reflect as “real” downloads for points?
It’s getting a bit confusing.
UPDATE:
I also read this post…
Now I’m even more confused. 
The button “Customize” just track the times the button has been pressed. It is incremented even if the user press several times in a row.
The downloads counts, is the times someone has dowloaded the generated file from the customizer.
And finally, if the user prints the file, you will see increased the number at the right. (I think this download will just be taken into account if the download has been made in 3MF format)
I see… 
In my opinion, this is a big usability issue.
How can I tell if someone really customizes my model or just leaves after clicking “Customize”?
Sure, I can count the downloads, but if, as you said, only 3MF downloads count, it feels unclear and a bit confusing.
There’s no clear usability path here.
Anyway, this is what we’ve got for now.
Thanks for your explanation.
Did I miss something somewhere, that not every plate counts as a print? Not very constructive for designers with models made up of several panels, which also took a correspondingly long time to create. Because the logical conclusion is that fewer large models will be published or none at all if I see that they are not printed or receive too few downloads. So while the counter shows less than 5 prints, in reality more than 50 plates were printed. So it would actually be more than 50 prints.
In contrast, every printed plate counts with small models that only need one print plate.
The whole system is out of kilter. That’s really discouraging me from publishing more complex models. I deleted one of them because I thought to myself, if nobody prints it anyway, i.e. the number of prints is low and the number of downloads is low, why should the model remain online, since there is no interest in the model, which is neither to be seen in the print figures nor in the downloads, nor in the statistics?
stl and 3mf counts as downloads, but my guess is just 3mf files count as printed (mainly because I don’t see how they can add any info into the stl to track the printing)
Yes, it appears you did miss it.
In the olden days, every plate was counted even if only one plate was actually printed.
Some of the bad actors spotted this as a way to game the system.
One account created a large project with many plates, all full with one plate having a very small model that would quickly print.
The other accounts would then print the small model on the near empty plate and bank the points for all the plates included.
It was reasonable for MW to crack down on this, they took an interesting approach. They chose to only count one build plate and only then if it took at least one hour to print. I believe this has since been reduced to 30 minutes.
They could have detected the abuse and killed the accounts, they could have counted all plates printed above a threshold, they chose instead, to only count one.
As you say, this greatly penalises those whose models are complicated as the rewards are the same for a big 10 plate design as a hueforge created using someone else image through a third-party (often website) solution taking around 3 minutes from start to end.
Ah, I misunderstood your statement, I thought you were saying that only 3MF files counted.
Evidently, only 3MF files can count as printed since they store the designer’s user ID in an XML file, which I assume is how the prints are tracked.
Maybe there’s a way to store something similar in the STL’s extra data, like a special image, but that’s just speculation. 
Thanks for the clarification!
For reasons of user-friendliness and to reduce filament waste, this circumstance sometimes cannot be changed. I have also distributed several components of a model on different discs. Because:
Of course, users are likely to print exactly these model parts several times in order to try out different filaments and decide on the one they like best.
If I’m faced with the fundamental question of whether I should behave in a way that is pleasing to Makerworld or pleasing to the user who prints it, i.e. the customer, I will always avoid deciding against the customer. Which means: if necessary, I’ll put a smaller detail of a model on a plate.
my personal opinion:
It’s also kind of crazy. I have made several suggestions in the past on how to solve the problem. But there seemed to be no interest in doing so: To award points only once after upload, reflecting the effort put into the model and its quality. No more points for prints and fewer points for downloads. This would solve many problems and the models would be of higher quality.
Quality is difficult to determine, but let’s be honest: AI is ideally suited to draw conclusions about quality, printability and development effort and to be able to predict this relatively accurately. If you train the AI to do so.
That isn’t and wasn’t the issue.
This part was.
Order your plates as best fits your project and model.
You clearly are not working in concert with many other users creating rubbish models solely to game the system. That is who blew the original distribution of points for the rest of us.