Print Profile Guidelines on MakerWorld

MakerWorld
1

Hello MakerWorld Team, hello Makers.

I checked the forum, but did not find a suitable place or I am simply unable to use the search function to find a matching thread. We need again to talk about print profiles and recent changes to the guideline. While each profile needs to have a printed picture for a while now, it now seems they start to force it, even there are valid concerns for certain kind of models we expressed multiple times in the past.

Today I received the following message:

Hi benjamin.kott

Weā€™re reaching out from MakerWorld moderation. To ensure the best user experience, we noticed some of your print profiles might be missing real-life photos of the completed prints. This goes against our Print Profile Upload Guidelines:
MakerWorld Print Profile Upload Guidelines | Bambu Lab Wiki

Hereā€™s an example:
Organizer Box / Boxes by Benjamin Kott - MakerWorld

To avoid having your profiles reported and potentially removed, we encourage you to make the following adjustment by October 9th.
Add real-life photos. Real-life photos will help users better understand the printability of your profiles and attract more downloads.
Set unfinished profiles to private if you need more time to add photos.

We appreciate your contribution to MakerWorld and hope these improvements enhance your profiles.

Not a problem in general, as all my models have plenty of printed pictures of the objects. But I do not print every profile since they are also used to give easy access to variations of my models. For those who donā€™t have access to Fusion or the Parametric Model Maker on the Mobile app. As I am also sharing the source files, as I believe in open source.

The profiles are the same for each model. There is no difference between them. Only the model is regenerated in a different size. So, it prints the same as the other variants - as you can verify if you check ratings and attached prints. There profiles are often requested by users and if it feels useful to others, Iā€™m adding a profile for it ā€“ so others that need the same can also benefit and we avoid crappy scaling in the slicer.

So, I am forced now to also add printed versions for them, even if I donā€™t need them myself and just wanted to be helpful ā€“ It feels wrong and a waste of Material.

On the other hand I have a hard time, getting print profiles removed from other users that upload useless profiles, with distorted scaled models, to avoid that users having a bad experiencing when the picture is bad and you only see the difference if you know that to look for. And we still cannot disallow users to add profiles to our models.

The parametric model maker is not usable on mobile, and most of the users using the app donā€™t even know they can use it and request different sizes from the models where the model maker is available.

To be honest,
ā€¦ I donā€™t feel appreciated caring about my models and the community.
ā€¦ I am not here for the money.
ā€¦ this is a hobby for me where I invest more time than my wife likes.
ā€¦ this feels like a threat.

So how do we proceed?

  • Do you also think that my profiles are worth taking down?
  • Do we really need to waste material to add printed pictures to parametric models?

Check yourself.
https://makerworld.com/en/@benjaminkott

Best regards,
Benjamin

CC: @Tanklet

2 Likes
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Just add a picture of the printed model (one of them) to the profile itself. I did that for all my models.

For parametric ones or similar, I still used one picture for everything, without printing every available size (e.g., LED Strip v2 - Guides - Diffusers - Accessories by michelem - MakerWorld).

I hope this is sufficient since, as you said, we are definitely not spammers/scammers, and I believe MW should flag people like us as ā€˜trusted.ā€™

1 Like
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Actually I think a ā€œtrustedā€ designer would be the way to go. The print profile picture requirement is a way to combat print profiles that are bad and give bad experience to users. A designer whoā€™s experienced enough adding convenience profile that he knows is good and will print is definitely not a bad actor and the print profile wonā€™t cause issues. Part of that is solved with print profile ratings: you only get awarded points for profile if that profile has good rating, so maybe if a profile from designer doesnā€™t have picture, the photo for profile could be taken from people rating the profile?

5

Iā€™m pretty sure weā€™ve heard ALL these arguments before. Simple fact is this is a Guideline/Rule that should apply to all no matter how talented or trusted you are. We have good intentions when designing and uploading a model, but how many times has a simple glitch in the process ended up being a dud print?

ā€œTrustedā€ makes me laugh, I see ā€œSpecialā€ makers currently uploading hand painted multicolour prints hoping to save time/waste when uploading coloured profiles. Lets be honest, pumping a couple of 40hr models out is hard slog and thereā€™s no denying the cost becomes a big factor especially when the market value is questionable. It is fair enough to hand paint, but do the right thing and be upfront about it with a single colour profile.

This place is about printing models, it isnā€™t instagram. I still question the fact you can upload a model sans profile letting some random to post theirs. Kinda lameā€¦

1 Like
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I cannot upload a picture to a print profile that is not matching the contents. It is the same was @GenericUser described, where people upload multicolor profiles and hand paint them. I would consider this scamming people. I mean for multicolor prints this is extremely dangerous, because it will probably be a disaster on print and lots of waste and frustration on the user side.

I agree and this rule is obsolete as we can clearly read here - as itĀ“s being already suggested to upload any image.

  • No one can guarantee that the image is matching the profile
  • No one can guarantee that the image is the actual model

There should not be an exception to anyone, i fully agree - but the rule itself has proven to provide no benefit to anyone and will not in the future.

1 Like
7

I got the message as well and the model they linked as an example does have did have a printed picture on both the main post and on the profile just not set to the cover picture on the profile.

Iā€™m all for changing the rules but I find it ridiculous they make it so you have to go back and redo all the profiles to match the new rules just make it for new profiles. I have 565 profiles (not a profile spammer just a lot of models with some having a couple different profiles cruse2382 | Published - MakerWorld) a fair few of which were added before the rule to even add printed pictures to the main posts was a thing.

Itā€™s taken me a few days to go through and change the picture of every profile to a printed one as I normally just upload the picture to the post and not the profile. Then another couple days with 3 printers running full time to print the ones I never took a picture of.

Iā€™ve even had to resort to taking quite a few things down that people had requested so i never printed for myself and have no interest in printing.

1 Like
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My profiles list has said (999+) for a few months now, I am almost at 600 models. I have always provided a photo of my models. Sometimes my print profiles used the plate thumbnails, but, the model pictures always had the printed models.

Fun times ahead!

1 Like
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yeah thatā€™s going to be fun, i did message makerworld back and asked if it was just a mistake or if the profile had to have a picture even if the model page did but they havenā€™t answered me so i thought better safe than sorry.

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Hi Ben, I had a similar model where ppl were asking for different variants (number of compartments) which I didnā€™t need either. I ended making them for individual users and just messaging them with files or posting them elsewhere. I agree with you 100%, the rules (canā€™t really call them guidelines) make it very difficult to add variants of the same thing. Most of my uploads only had one profile anyway but all had actual photos of the prints.

At least you were fortunate enough to have received a message about yours.

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Push again as I received a new message from @MakerWorld .

ItĀ“s again a model parameterized model, that contains plenty of printed images showing the model can be printed. The profile has mentioned has 1.3 k prints, with 197 Ratings on an average of 4.9 Stars.

cc @Tanklet

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And how did it end last time?
The only piece of advice that comes to my mind is that sometimes (wherever possible) you need to be creative while taking photos, if you know what I mean :slight_smile:

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There are 4 profiles. Two of them donā€™t have real photo of the printed item.
Whatā€™s the problem with the message from MW? Itā€™s clear to me.

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Please click the expand button, also please read the topic.

15

Done. Now six of them (of yourā€™s) are lacking a real photo.
My advice:

  • Add a real photo to any of the profiles
  • Make that photo the first image of each profile
1 Like
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I am not looking for advice what to do.

I want to discuss how useful this rule is, because it provides no benefit, even the printed image is no proof that it can be printed, because i can upload any image, as even suggested in this thread.

These variations are generated, means, they print the same as any other version. ItĀ“s being shown that they can be printed already on the model page.

17

yeah i get your point @benjaminkott and the use case makes sense, however, and itā€™s a big however, itā€™s the defined rules, and you have to check the box that you are including an actual photo of the printed object.

You may disagree with it, but by proceeding to check the box without an actual photo added, you need to be aware that it can be taken down under the terms defined by makerworld

now if this should be applied for all types of profile uploads, thatā€™s a different discussion, but as it is, there is already so many misuse, that iā€™m not sure introducing nuances will not just deteriorate even further the amount of profiles that shouldnā€™t exist and are just attempts at point farming

1 Like
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I made a mistake with a hueforge print when i first joined the site and uploaded the same profile twice , no big deal, my mistake , it was removed , a photo is needed and also to add to @h3li0 point you also confirm that a profile has been and is printable when you upload it , its just an opinion but id prefer to see how a print actually looks and how good/bad your work is before i decide to print , at the end of the day there are financial costs involved

1 Like
19

I am humbling with the terms here, guidelines and rules. But i think we can agree that ā€œguidelinesā€ are interpreted as rules here. I am ok with that, but i think we have to discuss the rules to find a meaningful set - that makes sense for everyone.

I am aware of these, i still disagree the use of that. Even IF i have printed versions available, i do not add the images to the profiles, because i feel they do not help the user at all.

If we take any of these models, they contain variants of the same model. Splitting the profiles provide a better UX, give a better indication about print time and filament consumption. Using generated uniform previews make it easier for the user to understand what to choose. I have printed each and every one of these, still Iā€™ve only added them to the Model and not to the Profile. Because i really think this is pointless. IĀ“ve checked the Desktop Usage and the Mobile App Usage.

This is why i want to discuss these rules, i know what they try to prevent.
But they do not and only clutter the views.

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I guess you are one of the big fish on the site then :stuck_out_tongue:

The rest of us just get slapped with point fines.

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I openly discuss whatever i do and point out the reasons for doing so. If they decide to slap me - what they do. I am not mad at them - especially not the moderators or the users who reported it.

Still, i think the way i handle it is in best user interest. As you can see printed versions of almost all variants on pictures in the description of the model itself.

So, the question is not if i get slapped or not. The question is do you agree with my standpoint and want to have the ā€œrulesā€ changed? Or what is your opinion on it? How could it be improved?