Request Feature: Equalized Verified Designer Tier

MakerWorld
1

Not sure if this is the best way to request features for MakerWorld so let me know if there’s a better category for this post.

Verified Green Checked Designers

  • Now that MakerWorld (Beta) has developed a foundation to build upon we need to address areas of improvement
    ~ This isn’t me or my business strictly being salty and trying to bash/atk the top designers. This is simply requesting Bambu Labs to create a method of equalizing designers.

  • All Sections for (Designers) is listing Top Tier makers
    ~ Requesting to implement a filter to search within verified designers tab, and search newly verified designers
    ~ Rank Designers by Tiers (Green Check / No Check)

  • Contest entrys of non-verified / makers are overshadowed by Top Tier Verified Designers
    ~ Create contests strictly for verified designers and/or limit submissions based on previously won contests (2) - 1st to 3rd Place wins every 3 months. This gains them a stronger following via front page algorithms in contests which also follows outside in regular model categories also overshadowing non verified designers / makers.

I know I will receive hate for this but It’s because I truly care and am passionate about what I do plus wanting to see MakerWorld become better than other hosting/maker sites. There needs to be a better solution to generating a level playing field and right now I don’t see much of anything being equal.

Please just respond with feedback or even your thoughts on what should be done. If you’re one of those top tier designers, please sit back and think about the little people and where you started before commenting.

Thanks everyone.

Happy Printing! :grinning:

3 Likes
2

The only way to improve maker world, imnsho, is to close it down, and start afresh. Hopefully bbl realise that it was a good idea, in theory, but failed in practice, due to the assholes that seem to be gaming it. Whatever bbl do, it will need heavy moderation, and a more equable reward system. Realistically, I can’t see that happening. From bbl perspective, the more ‘models’ there are, the more likely filament will be wasted., quantity, not quality, rules.

3

I mean I agree to an extent what your saying but a little much on closing it down haha.

It’s need heavy moderation 24/7 yet as we’ve all learned from the A1 recall to the lack of customer support. They obviously do not have the resources to accommodate all of this. Yes MakerWorld will and always will always be flooded with garbage filler models as with the 2 other major platforms. But take into consideration the others (besides 1) is solely focused on just 1 job. Versus BBL being a printer brand, filament “supplier”, and model host within a short period of time compared to the other big name brand.

As much as I want to see MW succeed, it definitely cannot be solely maintained by A.I. I make that statement in regards to their solution for lack of customer service being an AI FAQ bot… there’s to much going on in MW and money being involved does crazy things to people.

Sadly it will end for us if there’s never a handle on golden tier “Designers”… My team of modelers focus on business projects for clients and we never anticipated modeling for MW. It was more so something we could do and provide for on our own free time which is already very minimal. In hopes of somewhat being rewarded enough to provide resources, spare parts, etc.

I’ll hold my hopefulness tightly for a while longer. But if I’m seeing a track record this early on well it might not be worth waiting for. The golden boys / girls can solely supply MakerWorld and I’ll give the handful of other sites a go.

4

Well, not sure what’s got debonr feeling so down on Makerworld, but I find it to be a great site. I love it for a lot of reasons and the truth of the matter is, Printables, Thingiverse, whatever, they can’t provide for me what Makerworldis providing. I mean, maybe they can in some sense, but it’ll never be fully what Makerworldis, what it’s growing up to be. It’s still a small fry, but it’s far from a failure. I mean, I own an Anycubic, but you don’t see me on their model site frolicking in the flowers.

It’s also difficult to have moderators, or people curating everything. There needs to be some sort of balance, and some sort of automation. There are a lot of people uploading stuff constantly. People theorize these schemes that would require a lot of direct involvement, but when you consider the likely and growing volume of uploads, there needs to be some sort of strategy to juggle that without costly and timely human intervention.

If there’s something I’ve learned in my life it’s that you can’t always just throw more people at a problem to make it go away. I mean, an AI bot can have it’s place too. If it can respond to everyone that ask about that wear spot on their plate from the nozzle cleaning, then great! That gets asked about daily across the web. I don’t think AI is suitable for like model moderation though. Maybe certain slicing issues could be detected before hand, but anything visual like just… AI can’t think logically in a way that is compatible with visual based content moderation, especially when it comes to working to verify if a model is legit/stole, and those sorts of issues. In my opinion.

They do for sure need to get the system running a little smoother though. Feels like rusty gears turning under there and people keep losing limbs in them.

I saved the best for last, because com’on now. I’m not sure how I fit into your world view there. There’s certainly a lot of designers above me that have that going trending magic, they make those trinkets people love to print that I would consider mostly useless. I get jealous. I wanna give you a wake up slap for that statement though. They (The golden ones) aren’t going to make the platform whole. It takes a village. The contributions of everyone matters. It’s the contributions of smaller time designers that are the bread and butter. They’re the heart beat that keeps our printers going. We’re not going to build a better future here if you (or anyone else) runs off.

No, no, what we’re doing is better. Talking, making noise, pressing on Makerworld to make changes.

1 Like
5

I’ve not much skin in the game, so to speak. But I see as the big mistake that bbl seems to directly reward whoever posts anything on the site, which encourages the nefarious to steal from other sites or otherwise ruin it for the honest guys. It would work better, if not moderated, that the user rewarded the designer directly with cash but as folk want free stuff, then designers would not be rewarded, and worse still, the users would go elsewhere. The site would not grow as fast, but would be of higher quality, but growth is what bbl wants,- worry about customer support, the quality items later.

I do not bother much with Maker world, most of what I design tends to be bespoke, parametric and functional. However I have downloaded and perfectly printed the pastamatic respooler, since I needed that*. That design deserved a real reward, but I expect those that rode on its back, adding bits to it were as well rewarded, and more than likely it got ripped off to other sites too. (of course it could equally have been lifted from elsewhere - that is the problem with these open sites.)

Personally, I would not post designs that I valued on any of these sites. I would consider selling the final product, it being more difficult to copy. If it was particularly valuable, I would incorporate something else in there, that could not be 3d printed, electronics or machined steel, for example. If I was ‘that into it’, I’d be talking with the slant3d guy, or other print companies.

  • it was needed to re-spool some failed cardboard spooled filament, that would have been land fill, into printed stuff that will end up as landfill, too.
6

They haven’t ruined it for me. I’m pretty sure I’m one of the honest guys. Like there’s issues there, but they aren’t exclusive to just Makerworld, and in my time on Makerworld, I’ve seen them do a lot to clean things up. A lot of the issues that were present on the site when I first showed up, have been tackled in a number of ways. Some better than other, but still.

Since then, I’ve seen a number of very talented designs rise up on Makerworld and make a splash.

2 Likes
7

OK. As I said, I don’t use it much, but I have read the complaints, etc. I realise that folk don’t post about the good stuff, but it seems to me, that the reward scheme is a fundamental cause of many of the problems. Well, it is not the cause, exactly, but with such a scheme, it needs in depth moderation to kick out the bad actors. I’m glad it is improving.

9

I guess since I am a verified and often featured designer on MW I may slot into this “Top Tier Designer” and so my opinion comes from the other side of this topic.

I learned CAD and started designing about 2 weeks before MakerWorld launched and have put lots of effort and time in both advancing my CAD knowledge and prototyping designs for myself that I put up for free. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m very fortunate that what I like to design aligns with what many others like to download. Fortune and luck aside though, I still did put quite a lot of time and effort into my designs and am lucky to be rewarded with a verification. I know it sucks to apply to be verified but not get it, but in the most reasonable way, it seems correct that you haven’t been verified yet. I’m believe when you say you are active in the 3DP community, but the verification guidelines needs that activity in MakerWorld along with other requirements. I’ve got 38 models and 100+ print profiles and have participated in many contests. Many of the other verified designers have similar stats and/or ‘trending’ models and those that don’t have been personally invited to port over their models.

Because of all these requirements, it comes out more often than not that verified designers put out models that appeal to a large population and so yes, models from verified designers often overshadow other models from non-verified designers. Being verified helps make your stuff popular, but you become verified from having your stuff already popular. So yes, I 100% agree that the verified checkmark helps, but it’s a cascading effect that started when a designer got popular on their own merit (mostly).

Having a section for verified designers and one for non-verified doesn’t sound like a problem at all though; it sounds like a benefit for verified designers.

Separating contests though isn’t a fun idea though. Of course this is biased, as that would mean I couldn’t compete. But I’ve competed before with the verification and my models just didn’t make the cut and that’s just how it is. I’m sure the checkmark helps but a good model is a good model and my mediocre models were just that, mediocre. (Also just a tiny nitpick, a lot of the winners who are verified got verified after winning).

Anyway, this is my perspective from the other side and whatever MakerWorld does I’m sure will still end up fine. I would be sad to not be able to participate fully, but if that’s how equity is desired by MW and the userbase, then I’ll abide by it.

3 Likes
10

I hear you out and honor you’ve done so well in a short period of time but time bravo to that.

I guess my luck and fortune isn’t near where I would want it to be via MakerWorld. I take care of my family and provide a roof over our heads and everything else using my CAD and programming experience as my career is primarily involved with a major aerospace company as a general machinist of 10 years this July.

I’ve been an at home CAD user for the past 5+ yrs but only utilized it at work the past 3yrs. My work uses different software though since it’s mainly a CAM program though you can model it’s more so wireframing versus a CAD program like fusion specialized in hard surface and taps into the other categories like CAM though it’s not popular in the industry for that.

Guess I’m suffering thinking since I do it for a career I could do it for recreation as well but I did only start in December with uploading to MW and it’s only because I wanted to provide a model that would benefit and improve a Bambu users experience and product.

I don’t specifically model for art or play but more so functionality and usefulness but I could blame the fact it’s from sitting and having to program intricate, complex parts then machining them out of exotic metals such as titanium and inconel.

I don’t in anyway want to control or influence the outcome of MW but atleast provide a POV some might not take to consider. If you look at printables’s current contest based on engineering and technology design not many enter, but every contest so far with MW is based on just creativity, art and design not completely utilized engineering.

I appreciate your input though :call_me_hand:t3:

11

Thanks for the kind words, I’d wager your engineering knowledge/talent would do very well for you with just a handful more models like your 4-1 PTFE Module. Lots of designers focus on fun stuff which is awesome, but not enough engineering designs so I’d bet with some more BL related engineering models from you, you’d be recognized much more quickly.

Your comment about contests being about creativity/art does ring true, I would love to see engineering contests trying to solve some problems and agree with you there.

1 Like
12

I appreciate it! I’ll definitely work on some more concepts for printer mods/adaptations. The downside is art is easier to proto versus applications. I don’t even want to post a picture of how many of the 4-1’s I printed before releasing lol.

I do have a handful of concepts drawn just haven’t got to them since I basically ranked them by potential/complexity. Wear preventatives, ease of use, and simplification are some of the ultimate goals I see a need for when it comes to modeling anything for a printer.

I don’t want to go into too much depth but one instance is the purge chute lever. I had noticed the rear cover of my X1C had a small fracture exactly in the location the lever contacts with when located over the chute. It’s only at 3100hrs but that generates into thousands of moves into that position.

I modeled and have tested ever since receiving a replacement from BL support; a TPU “Sock” that slides over the top portion of the lever which dampens the contact but also slightly increased the force pushed upon the rear cover. So i also had to create a sleeve that’s TPU thin enough to still but stout and what it does it stiffens the hollow section of the toolhead’s rear end. So far so good and planning a release for this, but I don’t think users yet know or see the rear of their toolheads much. I passed this to BL engineering because I suffered chute clogs during multicolor prints no matter what I did and that was with the crack. After my fix (in the meantime before replacement came) I’ve had zero issues even after 50 hour M/C prints.

Theory is the crack caused the lever to not fully engage which wouldn’t lift the chute door up enough having a slight gap in which purged filament would become trapped in between and not exit properly but get stuck to door. Then repeat 2-5 more times and continue to build up which would then create a full clog. I need actual test result data before stating it’s an actual problem but I do know you could reduce the force when purging by simply adjusting the location in g-code of how far to postion in Y Axis as well. BBL seems to have made the cover flex a little to combat the force from the lever but the plastic gets weaker and weaker overtime.

13

Just noticed I went fully in depth… SMH…