I’m opening this thread to gather here users that you suspect are point farming or use not so honest tactics just to gather points. I want to do this because I believe that this is one of the very few ways rules and algorithms can be adjusted for a better community.
To be a bit clearer I’m not talking about:
what people normally do to optimize their chances to gather more points
profile branding for cohesion
3D renderings
I’m thinking of profiles that seem to be made “commercially” with gathering points as main purpose and not declared as such. It doesn’t matter if they follow the current written rules if they brake the spirit of the rules and harming the community. Few examples in my opinion would be:
using AI generated images to deceive (AI doesn’t “render” 3D virtual objects , just collages 2Dimages of objects )
working as a group to lift each others point count
publishing endless list of simple objects that can be easily made
multiple "almost " fake profiles administrated by one user (like some for each member of their family or friends)
use bots or other automation tools
There are a few things that this topic is not about and I wish we will avoid :
Judging the people that do this. It’s useless, doesn’t help at anything and distracts from the goal. Besides, you have no chance of knowing his/hers life situation, reasons, and so on. Stick to what is objective and useful.
Shaming the people you suspect are doing it. The same as above.
Mistake opinions with hard facts. The scope is to identify, separate facts from fiction, gather evidence, discuss an then let Bambu Lab take action if they want to.
I hesitated a long time before opening this topic because I was afraid it will degenerate into a public rock trowing but in the end I didn’t find a better solution and Bambu Lab managed to do very little about this. I decided to give people a chance to show how civilized they are an give a hand to Bambu Lab to improve something that for me personally has become a deterrent in using Maker World. I hope this will reduce the reporting and free some time for BL employees to improve MW rules and algorithms.
Oh, and one more thing, please don’t post the very obvious bots or rule breakers, report them directly, this topic should be about the more nuanced practices and user profiles.
Hello @Bisti and thanks for voicing your opinion. I think several in the community members align with what you are saying, and this was discussed at great length in the forum post below. It garnered the attention of MakerWorld and some of the designers who use these practices. Ultimately the topic was closed as the conversation ran its course.
I know about the thread , I’ve read it all and this is what actually helped me decide to open a thread I long time wanted to open but hesitated.
Sure, we could skip the user profiles that were discussed over there but I still think a good list is very useful, especially if we manage to keep the discussion short for any profile /user we post.
This is not only about AI generate image, it’s about the practices that harm the community and probably also the website.
This is a great topic that should be read by Makerworld, if it stays civilized until the end.
There is much that can be done but all that requires manpower and the will to do it. I believe that Makerworld in the beginning did enforce those rules (in the guidelines) more harsh but after some time, or the big inflow of users, started to be more relaxed.
While not possible to “clean” every topic, every model, every account, it should be fasible, more even with the tools they already give us (report profiles, accounts, etc.).
The problem is enforcing those rules at 100%. They can’t “kick” and “shovel” every report they get but in case of some reports, they should handle it with more care. I know because i have reported many users for affiliate links or fake engagement and even stolen models and only the stolen models get taken care off (most of them). The rest is hit and miss, but more miss than hit.
There is much to discuss without naming and shaming (they already know who they are) but the main point is how to enforce the rules without making creators leave the platform.
As @ozarkexpeditions mentioned, there was recently a topic about some of the concerns about AI generating models that do not correspond at all to the printed object and in that topic there was a big concern that was mentioned in public to everyone to read, that was the personal involvement of creators with Bambu lab that could give some creators the upper edge or making makerworld “close their eyes” to said creators. That is something that is yet to be seen as resolved, or so i hope. There should be equality, as mentioned in the guidelines. No one can or should be above the others, we are all creators.
One way or another, we are the ones that make the website running with our models.
One of the mentioned use cases would be registering with a phone number, but this would only take care of some cases of point manipulation. To be fair, there are people that could bypass that with access to more than a sim card. So that would not be effective at all, from what i can see.
I’ll keep reading what other say in this topic because that is something that interests me too, since i like the platform, the gains/points it offers and the cleanliness overall of the website. We just have to make it be better than the competition
That is exactly the point we should not touch, atleast for now. That person makes part of another scheme already talked about in the other topic. Instead you should mention “users that have high flow of boosts with simple or low published content”. Let’s try and keep this topic open for some time
This is called point farming. And this situation is the same as the guy in the previous discussion but i still don’t get it how it works for both sides. If someone has a theory or can explain what is the catch here, i would be appreciated.
Check the upload time, how many downloads it has and how many prints.
I did not even noticed that. I used this model as an example of what could or could not be considered “farming”, based on the time it was released until the first “print” comes out. Not saying that this creator is farming at all, but it’s one of those strange situations.
Sometimes it happens that you like something and get comments for it. It can also be that there are no prints at all or very low numbers because they are not counted for some reason. For complex prints of large models, people have to get filament first, which can take some time. But it is possible that they already download the model and even print it on another printer. Or they are printing it on a Bambulab printer and have disabled data collection for it. There are many reasons why something may seem strange.
My guess is that this model was requested by the user who commented. And he did the “test” print a took the picture for the model page. Nothing too shady here IMHO
Yeah, got that feeling too but you never know… and it was the first model that appeared on the “New uploads” section and i didn’t look well enough. No harm done
How about this guy getting 34 boosts in two days for a super simple model ?
He has no followers but follows 160. It’s pretty strange for someone that didn’t bother to get a user name. He’s following some of the best makers, so it might be legit or made to look like it (because I believe that nobody follows only the best and visible makers but also some niche makers) .
For this reason a way to see what models people boosts would be great. If it exists please let me know because it would be really helpful for discovering good models too.
It seems that this guy got banned, the link doesn’t go anywhere now.
@Henlor I felt bad a bit when I saw that he got banned but then I thought that they should have still followed the rules and maybe ask for donations in another way. For example some people might send them filament that they get for points. In this case it wouldn’t have anything to do with MW. Or maybe get someone to donate good models that they can post on their profile and get some points this way.
And it could be a scam as well. Anyway, that’s against the rules, MW is not a crowdfunding platform nor a charity organisation.
If this user and his quest are legit, there are better means to achieve his goals.
