How about stopping the whole points system?

MakerWorld
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Food for Thought: How We Can Improve MakerWorld

Maybe it’s time to rethink how MakerWorld uses points, especially if we want to keep it a fun and friendly platform.

Points are exciting because they allow people to earn rewards, even gift cards! But when real money is involved, people can sometimes get upset if things don’t seem fair. They might feel cheated or taken advantage of if they think something isn’t right.

I’ve noticed that many forum posts focus on cheaters, on users trying hard to earn points, often by using tricky methods. Some people post repetitive designs or even upload silly profiles, like just changing the filament color and posting it as a new one. You all know the people I am talking about.

And, MakerWorld itself isn’t perfect either. For example, I, at this very moment, have an issue with my very first gift card. MakerWorld claimed that I earned my points unfairly without telling me why they think so. The only thing I can think of is just because 3 of my friends, who also have Bambu Lab printers, downloaded and printed my designs. But I can prove that everything was done fairly! If you’re interested, I’ve shared more details in another forum post:

The core issue is that because points can be turned into money, we’re seeing cheaters, those who call them out, and occasional errors from the system itself. It’s understandable that these things happen, but when they all pile up, it can make MakerWorld feel less enjoyable. In fact, many people feel that the platform has become toxic. You can see these feelings reflected in a lot of forum discussions.

The solution could be really simple. What if we stopped offering gift cards in exchange for points? Then, points would only represent status, not money. This change might encourage people who genuinely love 3D printing and design as a hobby to stay, and the platform could become a more positive and fun space.

What do you all think about this?

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It would collapse in weeks if not sooner.

I get you are annoyed right now and likely justified.

But, this is a business. Bambu Lab requires a place it can send its new customers so they can print things to justify the purchase. Many have never designed anything and have yet to consider the skills they require.

The points are a payment (or profit share) from the effort required by those who give up their time, filament and energy bills.

If the points go, the good will goes as well.

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I would have agreed to this, up to this very morning.
When I found out that I lost point, got a temporary ban and I am not allowed to earn points the next coming week, without telling my why I received this punishment, the first thing I thought was… Hey, we are talking about my money, that I earned (And I quote you) from the effort required by those who give up their time, filament and energy bills, which in this case, is Me.

Then I found out, I am not the only one having this issue with BL, and browsing the forum treads, almost 1/3 is about cheaters, AI profiles, point farmers, etc.

I call this a toxic place, and if I were a company that focusses on the joy of designing and printing, I would not like it that my customers feel the way I feel myself right now.

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Burning the place down because some aren’t good occupants is strange.

We need to clean out the bad and make it that false positives don’t occur.

I get you have a vested position and annoyed, I spoke with you about it in your post.

Clean up, not kill off.

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I don’t think stopping it makes sense - the best designers will just go elsewhere. I would think though that they just can’t scale what they are doing forever at the same rates. So maybe we’ll see points given at lower rates. Also, it could be interesting to see people be able to use points to purchase user-created models instead of everything is just free and points can (mostly) only be used in the bambu shop.

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Did you mean to reply to me, I vehemently disagree with shutting it down.

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Please, i hope not. There are people already in the thousands, patreons earning them other hundreds or thousands, and so on. If makerworld creates a “paid tier” for models, those same people will continue to cheat the system and trying to bring those same followers into paid customers. I could explain in depth but i would have to name a few and i feel that it’s getting tiring already.

This is it. Rewards given and people stay here and some will cheat the system or rewards out of the equation and those that just want to earn money without delivering quality will jump to another platform. There is no easy way of balancing this now. It’s too late

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I would submit your appeal and wait for their response. The bots automatically flagged your account for one reason or another. Bots will be bots. They are necessary to weed out bad actors, but they aren’t perfect either. It’s understandable for you to be miffed, but most likely they will restore your account based on what you are telling us here. I received an erroneous penalty recently that wasn’t justified. I submitted my appeal, the humans reviewed it and made it right.

The points and reward system is great for them and great for us. Bambu is certainly behooved to make it the best experience possible.

Best of luck and hopefully they resolve this quickly for you if everything is on the up and up as you say.

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no meant to reply to OP up above

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So the 1st time you redeemed points for a gift card & failed…you want to have the point system revoked for everyone.

I’ll keep the rest of post to myself.

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Designers who don’t care about getting something for themselves can always use the points/lgift cards to buy something and donate to local schools. Or just don’t redeem the points and let them accumulate to use as a symbol of status or achievement.

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No please… Tell me what you think.
You can call me out for anything you like. I can have it

Yet, this is not my first time on the forum, and everytime I visit the forum, it’s full of people that are hating because of… Points. Always points.

There are cheaters, because of points.
There are people using AI because of points
There are people only creating profiles, because of points.

Want me to continue?
Just browse this forum, and see for yourself how many people are complaining. And all because of one simple thing, points.

And, Yes, i am a bit mad about BL stealing my points, blocking me and still listing my models, without me profiting from people downloading my models, because of points. But besides that, this whole forum is flooded with people complaining. It’s mad.

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At this moment, no one can see how many points you have. Tell me, how can this be a symbol of status or achievement?

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The problem isn’t the point system. It’s the cheater and how MW sometimes apply its own rules loosely.

The system also creates value on MW by attracting good designers and quality models.

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This is a tiny userbase vs the amount of traffic makerworld generates.

43764d

You’d be punishing the whole platform over a small percentage of troublemakers.

L take in my opinion. We’ve seen a couple of people on the forum that felt like they were treated wrongly and immediately demanded Bambulab to take the site offline until it is fixed or stop the program.

Blowing things a bit out of proportion aren’t ya?

There they are, the feelings.

They have every right to take away your points if you’re suspected of cheating. Don’t act like they owe you anything. Go to thingiverse and try to make money. Right, you can’t. Go to printables, there you can get a total of one spool of filament a month even after generating 100.000 downloads.

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you went from i want my points to no one should have points very quickly :smiley:

as many have said above, makerworld is part of bambulabs business model, and designers need to be rewarded for driving makerworld, if the rewards would be taken away, the only way for designers to generate either filament / equipment, or money to buy it, would be to not share for free anymore and go into a paid model only

there would also be significantly less models after a measure like that would take place, the vast majority of the designs would simply be placed in private or deleted completely

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Defenitely not. There will always be people abusing the system

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And me!

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I didn’t notice that. In that case, requesting a feature for creators to have the option to show the reward points in public will achieve the goal. Taking away the points, as OP proposed, will not achieve that goal.

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No no…
I want my points, and I filed a dispute. Of course I did.

And, I didn’t say that the points should go, I said that it’s food for thought to have this discussion.
There are a lot of good reasons to keep the points system, like the pro designers that will probably leave this comunity, and for others, the free spool of filament they can by every once in a …

There are pro’s and cons for working with points, just like there are pro’s and cons for letting people charge money for their models, like on Cults, or working with subscriptions, like on Patreon.

Yet, I don’t hear people complain about Cults and Patreon, with their models for making money. There are no cheaters, as far as I know, on these platforms.