What do you think of the new boost token redistribution system?

MakerWorld
107

I can tell you that in a nutshell and why more and more people are demanding it: To avoid something like this:

Look at the boost and then the download numbers: 249 boosts and 6 prints. I’m not talking about charity, I’m talking about fake post exploiting the system. Maybe you haven’t noticed this yet, but now you can read through the topic and why the voices are getting louder to link boost and print to stop scammers.

If there was an obligation to print in order to be able to boost, scammers wouldn’t be dragging children in front of the camera. That’s the whole fundamental problem. Not the discussion about whether something is “complex”, that’s the real problem.

3 Likes
108

Thank you for your long quality post. However, it’s still something you can not really measure automatically, which left users in a term of uncertainty.

I got for example 2x3 Boosts tokens, but did not boosted any featured or very popular model in the last weeks. I am still given my boost token to models, which are great in my point of view. I remember at least two models last week, which did not have any boost yet. This leads me to the consumption, that at least for receiving boost tokens, there definition is either overrated or overwritten by other things.

And that is why I want a definition of “complex” or call it “ambitious”. At the end I am searching for criterias what makes a model reaching this level. But - and this is quite more important for me - I am still thinking, it is the wrong way to force boosts to a specific type of model. The small and “simple” models pushed MW to the leading platform. For sure, the high complex model are a nice showcase, but nothing for all the newbies in 3D printing and mosts viral videos are dealing with easy prints - easy wins for fun or solution helper.

So I want to go back from “how do they determine…?” to “why are they trying to do it this way…?”.

  1. Limit the option for boosts to people who have successful printed it. Yes, users who are doing offline-printing are out then. But this would eliminate 90% of the cheater.
  2. Go back to 2 boosts token max per week, but increase the points for a boost token by the definition of “complex”.

That’s it.

3 Likes
109

Why didn’t they change the boosts to be paid by the users themself and let them do what they like. In fact it is just to promote the platform and give it a boost to pull “designers” to their platform. Most people would share their design even without incentive. Then cheating … would make no sense. Or is somebody make their living from makerworld. I can hardly believe.

1 Like
110

I don’t know … I would doubt that :slight_smile:

Apart from that, I hope you don’t call yourself a small creator, do you? ^^
You didn’t get a token directly after EVERY print until now. I (and I’m pretty sure others too) award them according to other criteria, not just because I just printed this piece and got a token for it.

Every time I have tokens, I go through my download list or the ratings and decide which piece I liked best or made my life easier. I’m so happy about some prints that I even give 2 or 3 boosts.

111

It might be worse in the feeling of the user. For now, if a user is boosting a “cheater” without knowing it is a cheater (e.g. using stolen models), MW is paying for this. If the users have to buy the boosts, MW will get a bad image soon…
Btw. the “buy me a coffee” thing is something you can see a lot, moreover the paid memberships are doing the same thing.

112

How does the new boost system prevent from cheating? It just does not. It is only said to get boosts based on models you printed that BBL considers to be valueable of some kind.
I guess the cheaters still cheats (however it worked before). If somebody likes a model … for whatever reason it may be boosted. Otherwise BBL should boost the designers and not involve the users. Then maybe there are some cheaters at BBL that try to get money out of the system. Therefore companies usually have an internal revision department. Apart from this usually the customer/user is everytime right. If somebody makes points with stolen models, BBL has to check it and it has nothing to with the boosts itself.

113

Exactly. The change does not improve anything from my point of view.

2 Likes
114

There are quite a few designers who are already receiving a good salary with their designs here in makerworld, a more than deserved reward for their work, and if makerworld removed its monetization system, most of the quality designs would disappear in a week.

115

But if BBL likes them to receive the boost, why do they not give it to them and decide it. Based prints, likes and contests and so on.

116

It’s crazy to me that this shoe holder has these stats, the model is horrible and exploits a child or is fake… Donors are really stupid, sorry about that. And yes it’s a big boost cheating, it should not be possible to boost without printing.

117

And it was a winner in the Shoe Rack Contest -

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118

Well, I didn’t mean to say that we should replace the word “complexity” with “ambition.” What I was saying, was that “complex” is just one aspect amongst all the criteria they mention. Let me give you my best as to what the numbers could be. I don’t work for them and I don’t have any more insights into their incentive structure than anybody else here; I have however, rolled out incentive systems in corporate environments before. Anyway, take the below with a grain of salt.

Let’s assume the way they structured the blog post is done in a way that the order they mention things actually reflects the weights they assign to different criteria. So, they say first of all…

[…] we’re refining how Boost Tokens are distributed based on two key factors:

  1. Quality of Boosted Models (80%)
  2. Active Engagement (20%)

I’ve given that an 80/20 ratio, but feel free to adjust that if you think that this puts too much emphasis on the model itself. From what I read though, it seems people see this as a 99/1 ratio anyway. Then under Quality, they mention…

  1. The effort creators put into the designs, reflected by its structural complexity and precision. (50%)
  2. Thoughtful color schemes and high-quality photos (30%)
  3. Detailed and accurate descriptions and assembly guide. (20%)

So “[t]he effort creators put into the designs” comes down to only 40% of the overall criteria. This “effort” in turn is measured by “structural complexity (50%) and precision (50%)”. Meaning if you only want to look at the model and not its description, the pictures of the model, etc. you are left with 20% of the overall criteria that are allotted to “structural complexity” because “precision” is easy to judge…

…if your tolerances are too tight for a print-in-place model and your joints fuse… well, that’s a fail. If your threads have too much tolerance and screw and nut don’t hold things together, that’s a fail. Now, if you ask me how I would define “structural complexity” in this context…

…if the only tool you have is a hammer, than every problem will look like a nail to you. And it’s certainly possible to hammer a screw into a wall. Meaning, if you only use ball joint everywhere because that’s all you know how to model but other types of joints would make more sense, etc. You can have an accurate CAD model but it may not be optimized for FDM printing, etc.

Anyway, that’s my bottom-up / top down analysis in a sense that if the above percentages were what I wanted to use as criteria would lead me to an email/blog post looking very similar to theirs. Lastly, boosts are just one part of their incentive system and a “boost” is not a “like” so we shouldn’t treat it as a “like” on steroids. They do state what they consider the purpose of a boost as well…

When we created the Boost System, we wanted to recognize designers who push the boundaries of what’s possible with 3D printing. However, […] Some users found ways to game the system […] Boosts often go to simpler models […] If we truly want to encourage innovation, we need to ensure our reward system properly values the effort put into each design.

Which basically, sums up to… boost are there to reward effort put into a design. And since I don’t really want to quote their entire blog post. That is to make up for people posting low(er) effort models and make their “fortune” by means of downloads; whereas these designers have the misfortune that their models (put short) might be intimidating for beginners to download due to the number of parts, print time, or extra things in the BOM, be that motors, clock kits, etc.

119

Beeh, we just have to do the same thing and we’ll get easy money. It kills me that such a grotesque lie can pass so easily.

120

After dipping out of this ‘conversation’ a bit because it’s just people arguing, I’ve done some catching up and it’s still just people arguing…

It’s very apparent that most people here are more worried about the “they’re gonna take our guns” dilemma and don’t actually care about the people or projects they are actually boosting

We all seem to understand what entails a boost worthy project quite well, and your boosting habits don’t need to change. If you like it for any reason that you seem throwing a free dollar at the design, do it.

Boost what you want, and you’ll see a slight increase in boost tokens for you to give out if you don’t boost 2d images, filament clips or hueforges.

That’s about it really.

121

Boost for my complexed model is down about 25%-30% compared to before the change.

122

Fortunately it seems that most people are not aware of these changes and they still boost my simple models :laughing:
I don’t know, maybe they will get less tokens to use in the future. For now, the case is still too fresh to say anything.

1 Like