Brother, you should know that obtaining recommendations is far more beneficial than competition prizes. Bamboo has done a good job 
may we all get blessed by the feature gods one day
Ignoring them is surely easy to do for some, but when we come to a point that full pages are the same model. There will be surely many annoyed by it. Itās like a trick to promote your account (itās like basic marketing).
Like a few minutes ago a lot of the same design (in the kitchen contest) could easily be in one design bundle, like situated as different items on one build-plate or downloadable as a raw collection.
This behavior gets copy cats because of the attention reward someone is getting.
So do MW want that! Do we as users want that! Iām against definitely.
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Yes i also like the āfeature rewardā for my creative work 
. But the fun i get from designing and getting better at it ( along way to go), is the real reward for me. 
Maybe this sounds a bit cringe, but hey itās my truth.
What i missed most (not exclusively in MW) is honest feedback of my designs, and likes (or lack of) is not enough. But iām going off topic now, so i shut up.
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Iām a little late to the discussion but wanted to throw my two cents in.
My Halloween house kit card was the second place winner in the first contest. Even now, looking back, I still donāt know why I was chosen. There were so many amazing models! Iām also a brand new designer, donāt have a following, and submitted the house four or five days prior to the contest close. My model did get a feature but it topped out at 300 or so downloads.
My spinning ring Christmas ornament also placed under the Excellent Participation section. I donāt know why I was chosen over all the other amazing designs either. I submitted it somewhere in the middle of the contest. It was never featured but seemed to gain traction in the download department anyways which is very appreciated.
All this to say, I have no idea anymore than you do as to the judging criteria. Other than I look at all the winning entries (aside from mine) and think āyes, they should be there.ā
Anyways, donāt let this get you down. It was a tough competition with almost 2k entries. Your Minecraft building set looks amazing and you should be proud of it!
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I think this is becoming a bit too much 
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Is it possible that the word MineCraft used in the cover photo may play a role? Not trying to play copyright police here, but Minecraft is a trademark. In any case, for every one winning entry, there are dozens more amazing entries out there whose creators believe they deserve a win, too. I am sure itās not OPās intension to make any winner feel bad, and there is absolutely no need for any winner to feel underserving and be apologitic. We should move on, if only to keep the contests fun.
What are you implying with Minecraft being trademarked? There were nothing in the rules that said copyrighted materials are forbidden to enter. Besides, I did say on the get go that my design is āMinecraft-inspiredā. If copyrighted materials are specifically called out in the rules as not qualified, I would have not entered my design in the first place.
I would believe this is implicit. Since if its actually a copyright infringement its literally illegal. Like breaking the rules of life, the rules one step above contests rules. Not saying your model is and personally I think 99% of copyright claims are BS. But just stating what the rest of us think is obvious.
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I am sure itās not OPās intension to make any winner feel bad, and there is absolutely no need for any winner to feel underserving and be apologitic.
Oh, no. Seiji never made me feel undeserving. I did that all by myself
One of the Excellent Participation winners was a PokĆ©mon house. I was actually surprised to see it there due to aforementioned copyright issues. It has āPokĆ©monā right there in the title as well.
IP in the legal sense is a tricky thing, it might be that its not actually a copyright infringement, even though its a copy of a Pokemon house, Nintendo might not hold the rights to the house. Although Iām sure they own the rights to the name āPokemonā.
Yeah I was gonna limit my response regarding IP onto my entry alone but since that Pokemon house was mentioned and even won a participation award, itās again not clear whether or not copyrighted materials are shunned from winning.
In the same premise, I could argue that the house and xmas tree design I did isnāt owned by Microsoft/Mojang coz I designed those myself. Iām sure the concept of building blocks isnāt copyrighted neither by Lego or Microsoft/Mojang. However, since I put Minecraft characters and mobs in my entry, that could have made the line blurry. I donāt think submitting with the xmas tree or house alone would have made a difference.
Lego might hold the copyright right now for ābuildable Minecraft modelsā but my design isnāt even close to Lego. Lego pieces are not hollow. My design uses a totally different āpegā and is hollow exactly for the purpose of allowing wires to light up the pieces. That has been one of my primary design considerations since the beginning.
Iāve always liked the idea of bringing Minecraft creations/designs into the physical world through 3d printing thatās why I came up with this design. Too bad the amount of effort and engineering that went into to get the individual parts form a cohesive structure didnāt seem to matter at all, either clouded by IP concerns, not unique enough or something else.
P.S. - My original plan is to have a complete Christmas village built. I have a shop and a church already planned but I was running out of time with only 1 week left til the end of the contest and so I wrapped up my entry into what you see right now. Not to mention I had to make the assembly guide for each and every structure I add to the build.
I am brand new to the community but would also like to echo a few of the statements made earlier by some others and add some notes to them.
#1 - Judging Criteria
For transparency I created the model file that was #1 for downloads and likes for the contest, and as such many told me that I was a shoe-in to place in the top 3; I personally had my own hesitations about it but thought there was a low % chance I would make it into a top 3 spot. I ended with a excellent participation reward, which I gladly accept and congratulate the winners on their designs. The MW rewards have been more than I could have ever imagined (my previous upload history earned me <300 points total at the time I entered the event). So zero ill will towards everybody who participated and claimed those top 3 spots
Clarification on the judging criteria would be something that I would ask to highlight better in future contests. There is a āImportant Note: Functionality will be an important judging criteria, so be sure to upload how your designs work either with the model pictures or in the descriptionā on the new contest which is a step in the right direction.
I feel that the winners of the Christmas were based more around aesthetic design and not around function, and if it were a bit more clear/explicit from the beginning maybe it would have altered my design of the exterior a bit more to fit the theme of the contest to a fuller extent.
#2 - Featured Designs
There is a zero chance that featuring a certain design or designer on the front page has no effect on the contest. As such all designs submitted for the contest should be ineligible for a featured spot.
There should also be a way around uploading a design, having it be featured, and THEN entering the contest at the last moment with all of the downloads and likes still counting towards the contest. Points/likes/downloads should start to accrue from the moment that you join the contest, and anything that has been gathered before hand (especially if it has been featured) should be null and void for contest purposes. The other way to look at it is that prior to obtaining a āfeaturedā spot, the designer should select if they want the featured spot or a contest spot, that the model canāt go in both categories.
Definitely something to work on here, and Iām sure that in some contests there is a high chance that it would play a factor in the popularity if itās one of the judging criteria.
#3 - Quantity of submittals in a contest
This wasnāt really something I looked into until just recently and itās ridiculous. People are purposely splitting their designs into single cookie cutters when previously they offered them in packages of designs just to get more chances to make a hit. Iām not sure if itās for the contest, or if itās for the makerworld points, but itās a bit annoying to scroll the recent posts and find many in a row that are all similar or by the same designer.
Limiting the quantity of designs to 2 or 3 would be an idea, and you can make new ones and upload them into 1 of your available spots overriding a previous entry maybe? It means that people need to make decisions and good designs rather than just using the shotgun of frankly sometimes cookie cutter ideas (yes that was an intended pun).
The idea of a āreportā function would result in the competitors getting salty and their friends mass reporting legit entries, and in turn making far more work for the admins of the site to deal with. It would make more sense for an employee to do the monitoring and hide entries if they donāt qualify just to keep people on track and adjust their models or entries if they can to suit the contests.
So with all of that said I really enjoy viewing/downloading/printing models from these contests, and I hope that in the future that BBL can tweak the contest guidelines/rules to make for a more āfairā contest for everybody, from the brand new designers to the seasoned veterans
~Mech 
Thank you for the suggestions, and thanks for supporting our contests along the way. Spamming issue is definitely something we will take a closer look at and enforce stricter rules in the future.
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Warning: I will be deliberately obtuse in this post for effect to try to get my point across.
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One last thing that I would like to mention/clarify is the topic about remixes.
In the contest rules/judging criteria it is noted as below about remixes.
So what is your actual definition of a remix here? From my point of view, anything that is a minor modification from an original piece is a remix. This includes but is not limited to:
- Recoloring
- Adding textures
- Adding text/graphics
- Alternate minor sub-in pieces that donāt change functionality but rather aesthetics
The reason that I am asking for elaboration on this is that in a few contests (judged and not judged) there are many entries that the original designers have made a very simple change, re-uploaded into a new āoriginal fileā and then entered contests to skirt around the rules of the design needing to be published after the contest start date.
Example 1
Number 1 on the right was uploaded Nov 5th. Number 2 on the left was uploaded Nov 16th for the contest. The only changes are a āremixā of the top piece of the lantern and a different panel or two (not sure havenāt looked into how many).
This design is something that I would consider a remix of the original, and they actually ended up WINNING the Christmas contest.
Example 2
This one is even a rougher example to illustrate my point/intention here. The design on the left was entered into the christmas contest and WON A PRIZE. Then the design on the right was simply re-colored and entered into the next contest. This is 100% just a remix of the original design and has zero right to be in this next contest. Your idea won a prize, design something new
Am I missing something here or is this fairly blatent/obvious to everyone else and everyone is just staying quiet to adhere to the status-quo? Like the dude even states in his remix that this is a variation of his original (so not an original design).
Donāt get me wrong, I enjoy the re-color more than the original design even, but it has no business being in another contest.
Example 3
If we are playing by the re-coloring rules could I do something like add text to the ribbons on the side and keep entering it into contest after contest? Zero changes to the functions, but add a āHappy Birthdayā logo to the side and claim that it is an original piece of work again? And then ā2024ā for the new years one? What about āHappy anniversaryā? The list goes on.
And then what about if I release a new screw head design with screw driver. It doesnāt change the function, it is what I consider a remix and therefore ineligible, but could I submit that for a further contest?
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Dude, Iām so glad to see that Iām not the only one seeing and thinking this!
I think everyone was just afraid to bring up concerns but I decided to start the conversation anyway to discuss which areas of the contest can be improved for everyoneās benefit.
Thanks for bringing it up! Certainly needs to be discussed.
And like most people here (I hope), if I have offended you with my post above or you are one of the folks that I mentioned and donāt like it, send me a message or post up a response and letās talk about it like decent human beings. Iām not here trying to make enemies or poop talk anybody behind their back, I just want to have a straight forward conversation about what is OK and what is maybe not so OK to do
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Donāt focus too much on the top three designs in the competition, because everyone can see the unfairness in the judging, 
and it will make you look foolish. Bamboo learned from this post that all they need to do is pay attention to when they start being fair. 
I honestly think some of the models that are getting features are actually bambu/makerworld employees, because there are some really lame stuff being featured right now. No offense
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