How about stopping the whole points system?

That’s a very good idea. That would for sure let some people keep their points, just to show them.

Honestly, I understand your feeling, it sucks!
But IMHO, it’s “only” 1 week of ban and it’s not the end of the world.
If you do not agree with their decision, just submit them a ticket and ask them for clarifications
But, I would not expect too much from it, after all it’s their platform, their rules and more importantly their interpretation of the rules.

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I see no reason to publicize points. The download numbers at least have a popularity aspect to them for models, but revealing creator points is just another way to get people mad at each other and give scammers yet another metric to use to determine who to target for model theft, etc.

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Do that then, by posting a feature request right here on the forum.

In the meantime, one shouldn’t get upset about points or gift cards, if one is not into these things to begin with.

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Let me give you a positive take then.

I’m a nearly 20 year veteran of the video game industry, and have been doing 3d in general even longer. I don’t just design because it’s a weekend hobby. This has been a life long passion of mine. Especially having worked in the video game industry; I have a deep yearning to create tangible things.

I rather like the points system and the exclusive program, the boost. All of it. I realize it creates a somewhat tense dynamic sometimes, as people try and take advantage of the benefits of the platform; it’s something that’d be true of any monetized platform though. People will always try and cheat and steal and abuse the system.

There are those that say if I want to make money, I should go to cults or thangs, or start up a thing on printables.

I don’t want those platforms; I don’t want to monetize my work that way. One of the cornerstones of my belief in this field is accessibility. I love Makerworld because it gives me an avenue to capitalize off of my talents while still providing my work for free. And the work I do is time consuming and expensive, so having the mechanism to recoup some of that cost is essential in a lot of ways to keeping this party train of fun going.

3D printing isn’t just about designers and engineers anymore, it’s about everyone. Not everyone designs and creates themselves, so there’s a huge desire and want for models, for cool things to print. I love it and embrace it. Some of the people I’ve met and talked to while on my journey here have shaped and changed my views. They opened my world view to realize the extent of what 3d printing can be. It’s something for all of us.

I don’t know what the future of this platform will bring. A lot of stuff is still being worked on, tweaked, implemented; everything. I see a lot of great stuff here though that aligns with my own vision and passion in this world, in this field.

I honestly dream that Makerworld can do for designers what youtube has done for video creators. That brings it’s own challenges and problems compared to a more traditional model repository, but it opens up the world for folks like me.

I’m not just trying to make money. I’m trying to follow my passions. I’m trying to create exciting and cool things that everyone can enjoy. I want to be here and do this, and be able to give my all.

I’m not the only one. It’s easy to look at designers and just think, meh they just want money. Or you see some of the people we discuss, and it’s obvious those people don’t respect the community and only look at us as a way to make money. That isn’t the whole of the community though, and the designers that take this seriously, that are following their passions, and that respect this community. They should not be vilified, especially just because they’re looking to make money off their talents. Those people are still working hard to provide content for free to everyone here.

And it can be hard work. Especially as you get into more complex things, into crazier ideas, into pushing the limits.

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Yes Feelings…
But, this is the whole point. MakerWorld Owes me money, as I am very sure I didn’t cheat, and there were points enough for a 40 Euro gift card. I basically worked for MakerWorld, with Time, Filament and Electricity, not to mention Effort, to earn the points that they gave me.
Then, when I asked them to redeem the points and get the giftcard, they took away my points, without telling me the reasoning for that, and declined the gift card. And on top of that, they gave me a temporary ban AND they use my models to show off to other people, let people download them, and I am not allowed the points for that.

If Etsy would do a thing like that, everyone would call it theft.

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Etsy is a shopping platform, an entirely different business model.

Most here know many Etsy users steal our work and sell it.

We have no love for how pervasive theft is on Etsy.

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Yeah, but you have to remember you’re in the same benchy as everyone else. So try to think from the larger context of:

What happened to you happened because they are trying to make it better. As one user stated, there is a channel for this through support and we all expect things will be rectified once they get around to your ticket.

Also, the points are obviously there to incentivize designers to design, providing an incentive better than any other site means this will be the most rewarding at least until someone does better and that makes it the most likely to receive the best designs. It also means the competition is fierce. All of this seems good to me versus the alternative.

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That’s not how that works. It was your choice to invest that on a platform that didn’t give you a contract or guarantee for points.

They gave you a platform to present your models.
They gave you exposure.
They gave you the opportunity to essentially make money.
They gave you 40€ for your current efforts.*

All you did was upload your model to it.

And now they feel like you did something breaking their rules and took some precautions to make sure you didn’t cheat them of money, other honest users should rather have. If the appeal you filed gets approved you’ll get your points back.

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Yeah that’s a good point I meant to bring up. You shouldn’t have the attitude that the platform owes you anything, other than fairness which can be highly subjective.

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This…
This is the first post that convinces me that I am wrong. We should leave the points as they are.

Yet…
For me, I am someone who has seen a bit to much in this world, and I am now two years at home with PTSS (PTSD in America), and loads of time. If there is one thing that pisses me off, then it must be when things are not fair.

I design, 3D print, do some CNC machining, Laser cutting and Vinyl cutting for signage. In all the fields I am working (or trying to), the groups are very welcoming and friendly, except for the 3D Printing community, where in the Bambu Forums, I see a lot of complaining. At first, I didn’t give a F. It was not about me and I thought that if someone is treated a certain way by BL, he or she should have deserved it. That’s what changed this morning when I woke up and saw how I was treated, because of these stupid points.

From my point of few (and I get it that I am wrong now). I don’t care about points. If I deserve them, I will fight for them, but I also would have been on this platform without them.

What I really love, is to wake up and see I received likes, downloads and prints. I don’t give a … about points, but the good feeling of people liking the things I created, that gives me a good feeling. Just like you are saying.

That’s why I said, lets get rid of the points… But I understand now that for a lot of you all, that would mean you would go away, and I don’t want that.

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Take your models offline then. It is still your choice to leave them published.

And we all know that you won’t leave makerworld because no one else offers what they do.

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Highly commendable to be able to change your mind quickly when presented with facts and evidence.

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I will add too, that I’m not intending to take away from the frustration that some, like yourself, are dealing with. I don’t have an answer to that, I don’t have a counter. It certainly bothers me. I realize well enough that it only takes one bad experience to drive someone away forever. I personally don’t want to see others having those experiences. I’ve seen people I very much respect get a sour taste in their mouth and high tail it out of here, and it can be upsetting. As much as I am a designer, I’m also a user of the platform too, so seeing people get dinged like that, and seeing them taking their toys and go home. Yeah, it’s not a happy vibe.

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The reason I keep bringing up ‘false positives’ is that is what I believe you are dealing with.

I’m hopeful your appeal will work out (I think you said you had).

But, you being annoyed shouldn’t ruin it for anyone else.

I also do not do it for the points, I do it to occupy my time before I finally expire. I take the points, I’m not stupid (I am, but not for this) it pays for printers and filament and more.

But, I worked really hard despite my medical issues and have 600+ models here and some people even like, although many get very little love.

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True, but this was an ongoing conversation and it started with this:

So… As a User, with the provided rules that Bambu Lab made, you and I are elegitable for earning money through their points system. Uploading, or uploading, creating multiple profiles, making prints (sometimes a few prints), making photo’s, and then making a ‘post’ is a little bit more ‘work’ than only uploading a model.

Al these things I do with a lot of pleasure, but all the extra effort from my side is done because of the incentive they gave me, the oppertunity to earn something. Sorry if I call that work, but this was because it was an ongoing conversation.

It is work, it is work when I do it from my literal deathbed. No one here will argue that.

Work can be fun and should be.

You appear to have set yourself up on a zero hours contract with a wish you will get sufficient crumbs from the table.

If this is your primary future income stream, you need to rethink your model.

It will take huge luck and significant effort to get to a point you can live of the points translated into cash you can spend.

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I feel this. I’m arguably one of the top designers here, but there are still moments where things don’t always feel fair. Sometimes I question myself, I question what I matter to makerworld. I wonder sometimes if I am working down the right paths, or if I’m just fooling myself.

It’s tough when you see people play cheap games and just blow past you like it’s nothing. I’ve felt like I had to work really hard to even get where I’m at. Like, I’ve never had Makerworld feature my models on Instagram like they do for others. It’s felt more like I had to just be exceptionally good with everything I do to another level to get noticed while others pop up mushy models that look like they melted them in the microwave before posting them, yet they’re exploding in attention.

I don’t always know how to balance those feelings. I know some of it is just in my head. Some of it is real. I don’t want it to take away from what I’m doing though, or my own passion for this stuff.

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I would agree with that.

I’m doing very well based on points, I don’t have the skills of @Josh-3D, but he cheats by being talented.

One of my models is in the top 175 of all time here and just about to be in the top 100 for this year.

I might even overtake @Josh-3D shortly :facepunch:

That success came because it turns out I am pretty good at designing a specific category of model that users here like.

Before that, my models were of little interest to others. Most of them have not gone past 100 downloads, but enough have to mean I do rather well these days.

During that time, I improved the offering:

  • Better photos
  • More photos
  • Better descriptions
  • Artwork on photos
  • Custom and different fonts on most categories and even most models
  • Creating categories of models
  • Responding to every single rating and comment
  • Creating user requested versions of models
  • Using humour and stories in the descriptions, cross linking related materials

I still get very angry at MW & BL, who annoy the proverbial out of me constantly. At the same time they do good things as well. I am equally loud in each case, although they only hear the rants.

I publicly shame them and privately as well. I try to improve things when I can. I constantly search for IP theft and alert designers and report it to MW.

This world is big and needy, you have to decide if you are in it for the long haul or your first set back will send you running.

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Just noticed that OP posted on another thread about this a few hours before. So this post could be a creative way :slight_smile: to get attention from MW to have OP’s appeal resolved. It’s probably not really a proposal to abolish the points system. OP wants the appeal to be successful in order to get the reward points. I hope it’s successful.

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