Open Letter to MakerWorld about Profiles and appalling enforcement

MakerWorld
1

I have been planning on writing this for a couple of weeks now.

I have considered coming at it a few different ways.

During this time, a few people have reached out to me to discuss their issues and if I can help them resolve them as I have a pedigree of success getting rule-breaking ones removed.

I have also been the victim of a rule-breaking profile that MW refuses to remove because despite breaking the rules, it doesn’t break the rules!

Some examples:

  1. Profile added with the photo proof looking like it was left on a radiator.
Summary

Original

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Third-party print profile photo evidence.

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MW believed the photo evidence was an accurate representation of what THEIR printers were capable of producing.

MW repeatedly refused to take action to remove the print profile. Each time saying there were no violations.

I can’t say what they were thinking, but, commonsense was not part of this equation.

It took the original designer to convince the third-party profile creator to remove their profile. It was at this time that the person explained “it was the best quality I could get from my Creality Ender 3”, it wasn’t printed on a BL printer, which should have been obvious to MW as it was to the designer and myself.

Rule broken: no photo evidence of a successful print from the print profile supplied.
Inactions by MW: **Failing to review the photo “evidence” and realising how obvious it was that it wasn’t anything like the quality that should be expected."

  1. Profile creator using photos from those in the comments.
Summary

The third-party profile uploader used the photos they found in the model’s comments, removed the background and then pretended they had taken the photos as evidence of a successful print.

MW took this down. 10 minutes later, the same user uploaded the same profile again with another photo taken from the comments.

MW took this down. Assuming this might be typical behaviour for the third party, I looked at their profile and noticed they have been doing identical things to tens of models. I reported three individually and those came down. I reported the user and the actions, hoping that MW might review the remaining profiles, to date, they have not bothered and the user is still up to their old tricks.

Rule broken: Using other people’s photos.
Inaction by MW: Failing to act on the account that has received multiple successful take-downs.

  1. Duplicated a profile supplied by the designer and changed the filament colours, calling it their own.
Summary

This was one I am still suffering from. Someone downloaded my profile, changed the colours of the filament, printed the model and uploaded the “new” profile pretending it added any value.

MW refuse to take it down because it doesn’t break any rules. Despite it being on the Discouraged practices list simply changing filaments is not a good reason for a profile.

Rule broken: ** 4. Only changed the filaments This may be considered as duplicate print profiles.
Inaction by MW: Failing to adhere to their own rules.

  1. Taking down a print profile WITH photo evidence because someone said it didn’t have one.
Summary

This one is also mine, I woke today to find a system message that says No real print image included. This is despite them also saying…

Thank you for your report. We have conducted a preliminary review of the reported profile and found no violations so far.

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So, they KNOW I have provided photo evidence of my successful prints, yet, took the profile down and now require me to appeal the decision that THEY DO NOT AGREE WITH!

I am left with a missing profile for as long as it takes for them to read and hopefully accept an entirely unnecessary appeal process.

During this time, the points I have gained on the model have been removed from my account as if I did something wrong.

What is worse is that I print 7 different models for each of my fidget models, one for each print profile. The images are clearly shown in the model pages and the print profiles, all of them.

Rule broken: Accepting a clearly inaccurate report.
WEIRD inaction by MW: Not denying the inaccurate report, one they agree is vexatious.

  1. Only renders are added as pictures, never any photos.
Summary

MW requires all uploads to be accompanied by a photo to demonstrate the success of the print to use as evidence. It is one of the most important rules, one I agree with that entirely.

If I report someone for this, they are taken down, unless they have a few downloads, then MW couldn’t care less what their rules say. A few downloads do not equal successful prints, it equals someone downloading the profile a few times.

The rules should be enforced equally to all people. Allowing a few people to game the system because of a few downloads makes other people think they can also get away with following the rules.

I could provide a few more dozen recent failures by MW to adhere to their own rules concerning the print profiles and allow third parties to profit from MW’s inaction.

It is important to distinguish between value-add profiles and points-harvesting profiles.

Value-add

A profile that provides something the designer was unable or unwilling.

For example; support one or more printers the designer didn’t, the A1 mini was a perfect example, prior to the recent change that finally adds them automatically. A fully painted version of a model the designer chose to only provide in a single colour.

Point-harvesting

Any profile that breaks the rules.

One that only changes the colours of the filaments used in an existing profile provided by the designer.

Any profile that claims to be faster when all they did was reduce the infill, wall count or scale. I had a few that did that on my fidget spinners. With precise tolerances and weights required, making it 88% with 8% infill stopped it functioning!!

Outcome

I and many others reduce or stop acting in a community role, one they used to enjoy. Because if MW can’t be bothered to keep their house clean and follow the rules, why should I spend my time picking up trash?

I know MW knows who I am as they have told those who report models about me, and my actions on the forum and in reporting.

They also reached out the other day and sent this.

Hi Malc, we want to thank you for your ongoing contributions to our community and forum. Many creators have reached out to us to express their appreciation for your efforts in safeguarding their intellectual properties and maintaining the integrity of our community. We truly value your constructive and honest approach, and we recognize your role in making MakerWorld a better place for both users and creators. We’re excited to share our growth with you and remain committed to progressing in the right direction with the support of key members like you…(the remaining part was personal).

Community Guidelines
I am aware they published an updated MakerWorld Community Guidelines, but that fails to address any of the issues here.

Also, it is very light on details, a problem that has caused many people to seek clarifications the document should have cleared up.

Does anyone else have an example of MW not uploading their own rules with print profiles?

If you do, add it below and keep it factual, and to the point, do not add judgment other than what they did/did not do and the impact it may have had.

Outcome wished for
I am hopeful MW will read this open letter and reach out to me and we can work to improve these things for all people…

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Hear! Hear!

3

Butting heads with support isn’t productive, often times as you’ve mentioned we simply walk away in disgust after attempting to stimulate the vision MW started out with. I admire their resilience, I don’t mince words and am passionate to a fault, they are respectful enough to maintain composure (maybe they run it through GPT).

There is a real problem though and watching the feed degrade over this year has been sad. I take time out as I often do and came back to see the same old stuff still happening. Some days I pull my head in and refrain from caring, it isn’t worth the mental energy. Other days I’ll filter through and tick off a bunch of uploads that are so low quality they aren’t contributing to Makerworld. Why do it? Maybe I like MW and support the vision along with others who share the same passion.

What would be nice is seeing a more timely effort in processing the reports, this is a round-the-clock problem. Utilising some community support would be a suggestion, obviously not with full admin control but more a filtering task to categorise and cut down the multiples when a heap of people are sending in the same report.

End of the day, I support what The Oracle has written and think along the same lines.

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I want to start this post by publicly thanking Malc for his efforts, as I believe he truly wants MW to thrive and be the best model site out there.

I also support his initiative here.

I recently had an experience that fell under bullet 2 outlined on Malc’s the original post. I want to add my perspective to this. It is my opinion that the majority of users and contributors on MW are amazing, and act in ways that create an overall positive. The ‘bad actors’, I believe, are small in number, but the effect of these ‘bad actors’ can be significant (even in ways that may not be obvious, or easily traced). There are many costs associated when someone abuses the systems (time, effort, credibility, trust, etc.).

It is my opinion that a “reporting” system is just not feasible to control the abuse (it seems ineffective). The effort to create a profile and post it, is almost nothing, when one does not care about quality or intent is to deceive. The effort to design, test, and publish an original model is often far from trivial. Unfortunately, the effort to report, and “prove” a bad actor is, IMO, more effort as well.

I would like to see more control given to the creators/publishers, for their listings. No one cares more about the experience of a posting, and the experience of those printing the model(s), than the person that created and posted it. I believe that original creator should be able to “review” every profile “submitted” to a listing to determine if it upholds THEIR standard for the listing. Like Malc mentioned, there are two types of profiles, value add and point stealing. I believe most designers would welcome well-constructed, “value add” profiles (and even willing to coach others on what to do).

I think a lot of us are very appreciative of what Bambu and MW have done for the hobby and have empowered us, and the community has clearly responded in an amazing way (I personally never thought MW stood a chance to make a foothold when it first came out). Continue to empower us and we will be here.

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In the Hanger contest.
Here’s a great example of how they really let anything go. This week, I saw a post that completely copied the creation of “@XYZ space.” You have to have some nerve to post that, and there are quite a few publications under their belt, which makes me doubt them. After reporting it, they removed it, but still, they let that slip through at first!

All these S*it also harm the growth of beginners like me, who end up losing visibility in the end

*my firts laguages is french sorry :wink:

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We appreciate your valuable feedback.

Our team has been informed and we are conducting a check internally to further optimize our review processes to ensure a more accurate resolution.

Your patience is appreciated while we implement the changes.

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Wow. That answer was almost more Generic than me :grin:

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Update

Point 4 here has been resolved, they took a day to decide that the photo evidence they had already seen was still there after I had to appeal the decision to remove one of my profiles to tell them the photo evidence which they knew was there was in fact there.

They wasted a day, having removed the most popular profile of my fidget spinners for 24 hours, stifling the growth potential of the model right after its launch and now the download numbers are far lower than would be expected.

That profile represents an 80% average of all downloads for my models.

There was no need to remove my profile that they already knew was compliant just because someone said it wasn’t.

Innocent until proven guilty is a common process in civilised societies.

This system is broken.

The last phrase they used was a warning telling me to follow the rules or action would be taken, completely ignorant of the fact I never once broke the rules!

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As expected, a generated response :hugs:

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In theory (and in law) you’re correct. However, in real life, in most cases than not, the common approach is more like “guilty until proven innocent”, with the caveat that the burden of proof lies with the innocent to demonstrate (beyond any reasonable doubt) not being guilty.

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Wow you got lucky. Mine did not even bother changing the colors. Just re-uploaded a profile identical to mine.
Designers should have control over profiles that are added to their models.

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I had another do it today, they print four pieces of a 54 piece puzzle, no base, no stand.

Now they are famous!

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Temporary dusty fame, Malc. Usually, not very long lived. They can copy someone’s work only so many times before it becomes pretty damn obvious to everyone else who’s the real creator and who’s the shameless copy-cat…

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BL haven’t removed it yet or even bothered to respond.

They have also left a number of invalid entries in the puzzles contest despite them being reported over 24 hours ago.

A coaster isn’t a puzzle nor is a fidget spinner.

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Perhaps BL has troubles understanding its own rules? Or simply it doesn’t care to react, in which case I’d stop sharing my makes through MW. There are competitors ’ platforms out there (from where BL got the inspiration) ghat play by the rules, and respect their makers. Perhaps if more makers would stop sharing, BL/MW would have to react and take a more formal and proactive stand, to not lose creators… I don’t know. I’m thinking out loud.

16

BL is on a real go-slow to the point where reports are pretty much pointless. They’ve been gradually getting worse, I’ve taken to spamming their support tickets on certain repeat offenders and even those are getting ignored.

@Makerworld may as well change the Guidelines title to “Suggestions” and we’ll all go away.

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It’s a both a shame and shameful this is happening. Unfortunately we know that the internet is full of people stealing other people’s work. Most importantly, THANKS for bringing this to the attention of BL. I don’t really expect them to do anything about it as it’s all about clicks and visits for them. Perhaps they could come up with some kind of “Genuine Creator” icon or something or maybe have some algorithm built into the file or images that would prove it as an original creation (unless someone finally takes legal action against not ensuring that intellectual property (even is shared for free) is not stolen. The other option would be to simply employ someone to approve uploads and check them for originality or check for attribution to the other creators in their work.

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Its understandable that people would be frustrated at firstly the files they upload being stolen by others and that there is a degree of frustration with Bambu Labs apparent inaction. To play devils advocate BL have made a rod for their own back, to Police the Makerworld Platform would be a never ending task and very difficult to take action against offenders, trying to enforce any regulations or rules on the web is difficult if not impossible and unfortunately not everyone is honest. Its not just Makerworld is virtually every platform, I have had files stolen, modified sold etc etc, my files of value (to me) I won’t share them, yes its all very annoying but at the end of the day its my choice as to whether or not to share. Again, for me, I won’t lose sleep over the fact that I have shared files and then they have been copied, it was after all my choice to upload. Also I would rather enjoy the hobby and make the small amount of £ I do than waste time effort and energy fighting for what is right but almost an impossibility to enforce. My opinion though and fair play to those that are pursuing the issues

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Dear MW.

You just granted this post Good Topic which you describe as follows:

This badge is granted when your topic gets 25 likes. You launched a vibrant conversation that the community rallied around.

It has only been granted 28 times previously on this entire forum.

Doesn’t this tell you something?

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Dunno, I had 9 go through yesterday. Your point does stand though, cause I think 2-3 were double reports from days ago.

You cheated. I got Nice Topic. I bet you only used one or two words of mine in this post.

Taking my printer and going home.

(yes I’m joking, I don’t take my printer anywhere)

I want to add the community can be awesome. I uploaded the contest entry and the very first reply suggested it should have a cover. I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks to
rachele819
 I whipped one up somewhat slowly.

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