Questions regarding MakerWorld points

MakerWorld
41

As others said already:
“I completely agree with the idea of limiting uploads per user. I believe that allowing one upload per day is more than sufficient for regular ones.”

Anybody who worked hard on his models to publish them, knows that you cannot create quality models and presentations for more models per day, every day. I really believe this is a great rule to be implemented. Maybe this will also force people put the same model variations in the same upload, not 10 uploads with same model in 10 different sizes.

Regarding the points for profile, as someone else also said, I don’t think Makerworld should award any points to profile uploaders. All the points should go to the designer even if the profile is created by someone else. Maybe an exception only for the uploads where the designer didn’t bother to print and upload he’s own profile, but otherwise, I find it dumb that the designer worked and someone opens the designer profile, does 2 clicks and uploads his fantastic profile to get points…

42

I would like to say something about competitions, because that wasn’t even asked about.

A competition is a competition, isn’t it? So create a level playing field for everyone who wants to take part! As it’s unfair and unjust, I no longer take part in competitions. My time is too valuable for that, as it is limited by life. But why is that? Let me list the points that come to mind:

  1. a competition has a time window to submit the model, right? So why do you allow models to be downloaded and evaluated before the time window is closed? Make all models for a competition accessible only when the time window is closed! The model must not be displayed anywhere before then.

  2. if the models are publicly available for evaluation, refrain from favouring certain users, such as Bambulab recommended designers! Remove all predicates in this regard!

  3. each time the competition page is called up, you re-sort the list of outputs on a random basis, so that each user sees a different selection of models in a different order than other users!
    Wäre zumindest schon einmal ein Weg in die richtige Richtung mit mehr Fairness.

-.-.-.

Here is my next point, which I have already mentioned elsewhere:

Come up with a way to rate models according to effort and award points for it! Give a complex and elaborate model (e.g. trucks, houses …) more points than simple models (the fifth scraper, where two corners of the model have been changed, than the last scraper). Award the score for a model exactly once! This means that models get more points than the current 30 points for uploading. Feel free to award several hundred points. This way, someone who has really invested a lot of work could redeem more points (which they would presumably invest in consumables or a new printer), while other users with a scraper only get 5 points for the model, for example.
Stop awarding points based on downloads! This solves a lot of spam problems and leads to a better appreciation of the designers’ work. It should go without saying that you will bring high-quality models worth seeing to light on Makerworld and encourage designers to create such models and publish them on Makerworld. Stop favouring certain users by awarding predicates such as “recommended by Bambulab” (or something similar)! Sort the lists for output at random each time you visit the site, because you can only display about two dozen models immediately accessible (without a long search) with thousands of models.

Have a nice day! :slight_smile:

43

This is a terrible idea. The designer already gets points for every download, even if it’s not their profile. ANY profile download contributes towards the total download count.

After the initial points (under 50 downloads), the ratio is 25 points per 25 downloads for the designer vs 4 points per 25 downloads for the profile creator.

You need to give the non-designer part of the community something to keep engagement going and a mere ratio of just 16% of the designer points is peanuts (especially when the designer ALSO gets points for each of these downloads).

Spamming profiles should be dealt with separately instead of punishing everyone.

44

I don’t know man, getting 16% of the reward from uploading a print profile for a model that you put in 0% of work to design and model is more than generous.

1 Like
45

Except you wind up with a bunch of bulls*** profiles with barely any changes to them awarding points to other people. Changing the layer height or the number of models on the plate and posting a profile of it is a cheap, minimal-effort way to spam points. You do realize that you get download points for printing your own profile, right? Make one change to my profile, upload it to my model and print it 5 times… BOOM 10 downloads (with 1 download going to the designer). Do it 500 times, ~$320 US. With NO design effort or will to actually improve the model. It’s gotta stop!

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1 Like
46

When you look at a typical model it’s peanuts. Here’s an example of one of my models converted to very approximate points earned:

Model: 1,100 points
Profile 1 (my designer profile): 84 points
Profile 2: 24 points
Profile 3: 8 points
Profile 4: 0 points

People already download the designers model the huge majority of the time. In this example I earned 90% of the available points.

And extra profiles probably earn the designer more points in the long run anyway. I know I have printed a model, then gone back and printed another profile (multi-colour, different filament, or other altered profile), and successful prints earns the designer double ‘downloads’.

47

At least use facts when making your point. You don’t get actual points until your profile gets rated above 4 stars. You cannot rate your own profile.

And guess what? Even if they are abusing the system, you as the designer get credit for every single successful download (2x for successful prints). This imaginary $320 you made up would translate to $2,000 to the designer without them doing anything.

This isn’t happening.

48

I respectfully disagree with this. Successful downloads do not earn the designer double downloads, only one download for each unique download of the profile. Successful prints earn the profile uploader double downloads. For those intent on spamming points, all they need is 5 successful prints of the model to earn 8 points, which they can do themselves.

You can try it yourself. Go print one of your own profiles and watch the downloads increase by 2.

49

Yes, that’s true. But a separate account owned by the uploader can rate it.

50

Ah yep I meant prints (and now fixed).

I know how the downloads and points system works, but you still need a 4+ star rating to actually get the points. Any pattern between multiple accounts would be easy to detect and that’s BLs problem, not ours.

Doesn’t change the fact that the designer still gets credit for these fraudulent downloads and prints.

I agree that BL needs to fix these cases, but there are still plenty of benefits to users uploading profiles. Plus, designers can simply upload 4 profiles and it pushes down the 3rd party profiles out of visibility.

Trying to stop people earning such a small amount on profiles just seems so petty. It’s like a king with their jewels and infinite money telling the peasants they can’t have bread.

1 Like
51

Unless I’m reading the rules wrong, I don’t think the designer gets 2x print downloads for someone else’s profile. They get one download for each unique download of someone else’s profile.

Be that as it may, this is not a huge problem for me personally. The points are a nice bonus and they do increase my engagement. It just irks me to see users with a few model uploads and 500 profile uploads of other people’s models. There is an optional checkbox in the profile upload dialog to award all points from the profile to the designer. All I’m suggesting is to make that non-optional. In my view, this would cut down on a lot of spam profiles. I rarely add profiles to other people’s models. If I have suggestions, I will detail them in my rating and let the designer add or change the profiles.

52

This idea is brilliant. People who are actually designing things don’t typically upload more than once or twice a day while the spammers are just pumping out ripped models continuously. As said above this would result in the spammers being more choosy about what they upload resulting in the junk being thinned out.

53

Yes to this. When someone uploads the “alphabet” one letter at a time (26 uploads to fill the page), numbers one thru ten (10 more uploads to fill the page) or like the guy who uploaded a yellow/black face, each with a minor variation, again to fill multiple pages, it gets extremely tedious to navigate and find something of interest.

54

MW asked if we believe niche and complex models are being less rewarded and if actions are needed if it’s a problem. Why MW asks? Maybe it wants to attract more niche and complex models and their creators. Maybe it wants to offer an alternative to the models that are being attracted to the Store in Printables.

How? We don’t know what MW has in mind yet. Could be more reward points for each download/print, or some other ways for these models to moneytize. But the potential development is a postitive.

2 Likes
55

Agreed. I jusy printed 2 replacement key fobs for an older vehicle that was a good remix of another model. It would have cost me considerable money to buy replacement parts. And i was able to 3dprint 2 of them.

56

I already wrote at the beginning that I would like to see a limit on the number of uploads per day.

In the “New Uploads” section, I regularly see new users uploading dozens of uploads within a few minutes thanks to the import function.

If you’re unlucky enough to upload your new, painstakingly crafted design right before such a mass upload, you’ve lost. Nobody will ever see it.

That’s why I think it’s extremely important that a hopefully upcoming upload limit also applies to imported designs.

1 Like
57

yes - that’s absolutely the truth. I’m always asking myself whether most of the users bought their printer in order to print printer stuff :sweat_smile: all the printer accessories skyrocket where usual models just do not get any attention. maybe it would be a try to even more separate those models.

yes absolutely. for instance filament clips. there was a quite popular one which was downloaded over 7k times. In my eyes there is a big glitch. a simple filament clip with e.g. 3g of filament is generating the same amount of points as e.g. a 300g art figure. In my eyes the overall volume of a model should be a kind of multiplicator for the points. designing such a clip will take not longer than 10 minutes. these guys will never ever again need to buy filament as they swim in points. creating a complex model needs a lot of prototyping. in the last weeks I wasted ~2kg of filament just for figuring out which support structure needs less filament while still being stable. this is currently not rewarded and somehow annoys me. such a clip can be printed serveral times without even recognizing that filament is gone…

yep - there should be some actions. a lot of stuff was already mentioned.

by the way → I want to add some words regarding the contests as they also hit that topic in a way. as a “small designer” you do not have the slightest chance in the competition. why? because whenever one of the “bigh whale” designers is entering he is just skyrocketing away due to his followers. also the “featuring” is distorting a fair competition in a way as these get automatically more attention. featuring is cool but should be paused until the competition is over.

1 Like
58

1:
Yes, but I don’t see it as a problem, as I hope the only goal for ppl who upload here is to gain points, and if it is they would most not go for nice items.

2:
Yes, but I don’t see it as a problem, as I hope the only goal for ppl who upload here is to gain points, and if it is they would most not go for nice items.

3:
I’m not sure how frequent they are, but I believe that no action is required.

I have noticed that this site is often spammed with a lot of bad or useless uploads. To address this issue, I suggest tweaking the points system for new uploads.

My proposal is that an image of the print would give a certain percentage of the points, and a print profile would also give a certain percentage of the points. This way, uploads with pictures and those with print profiles will be rewarded, instead of just renders of the parts.

For example, currently, an uploaded file gives 10 points.
Another way could be.
the upload itself would be worth 4 points
the image would be worth 3 points
the print profile would be worth 3 points.

As a bonus or punishment, uploads that have all three (the upload, image, and print profile) could be served to users more frequently, while those with only one or two would be pushed less in the “Related Models” section.

@3DBrinumi
Sometimes I come across a cool 3D model and I make sure to give it a thumbs up to show my appreciation. But just because I liked it, doesn’t mean I’m gonna download or use it right away. So, I end up having more models liked than downloaded. And to be honest, when it comes to going back and liking stuff that I’ve already downloaded and rated I can be a bit lazy.

3 Likes
59

First Answer: Niche models and anything that doesn’t serve any purpose will always see low attention. Now that’s different for niche models that has a demand like phone stands. It’s a niche area since most look the same. But if it looks to actually fit someone’s need it’ll gain attention.

Second Answer: Yes, complex long print time non PLA models will only gain attention of educated and experienced users. But without warning or knowing, a new user can see it due to the current downloads then attempt it and fail.

Last Answer: The fact points drop from 30 to 25per 52downloads isn’t fair imo. It takes a long time for us designers that only make useful content. I feel it should only be reduced if the downloads gained traction rapidly within a certain timeframe then jump back if it’s slowed down so it’s more rewarding even if it takes 2 months to get 50 downloads versus 3 days.

Add more reward options, add a $10 gift card for 190 points, free shipping voucher, free spool of PLA Basic or etc, Add more options for receiving points like how many times it been collected also or each time a models been remixed or shared. Even for say views rewards per 20 views = 5 points. MakerWorld wants to be different? Then be different

All this is our 2 cents and we thank you Bambu labs

2 Likes
60

I suggest that we involve some members of our community in moderating the site’s models. This will work by having flagged models reviewed by support with priority, allowing for faster removal of inappropriate uploads. I have noticed that some models not related to contests are being uploaded, creating clutter on the page.

1 Like