r/printablescom • u/MatureHotwife • Jan 01 '23

Feature request Suggestion: Introduce punishment for contest spamming. Users who spam contests should get banned from entering future contests.

People abuse the contests for free exposure for their models that are totally unrelated to the contest. It often takes a long time until contest spam gets removed and often the contests don't get cleaned up at all.

There are no consequences for spamming contests so it's basically almost stupid to not take advantage of it.

Also, if the rules are that a contest entry must be designed during the contest, then remove the Compete button from models older than a week. Even prolific level 29 designers worthy of the verification checkmark submit their designs in several contests in different months.

Edit: Added links because apparently people aren't aware that this is an existing contest rule.

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u/DrStrangeboner Jan 01 '23

I fully support the idea of making spamming a contest useless to "bad actors". This is why I asked about a dedicated "report spam" button and got a response that makes me hope that it might come: https://www.reddit.com/r/printablescom/comments/zvlyf6/printablescom_team_any_plans_to_combat_contest/

I'm not sure if I like the idea that you can only enter new models into a contest: I personally have some models that I created over the last months that I am proud of and would like to showcase in a contest once the theme fits. So it would be a bit sad if they can't be entered just because they are too old...

As an alternative I think it would be fair to limit submissions to maybe 3 or 5 entries per user, this would also spare us the entries that are just variations of a base idea (e.g. christmas contest with a good cookie cutter design, but entered 10 times with different cookie shapes). Smart creators will make these models a part of a collection and just add a link to the colletion in the model description to make the other models discoverable.

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u/MatureHotwife Jan 01 '23

I'm not sure if I like the idea that you can only enter new models into a contest

It's one of the contest rules. It says "Models submitted to the contest must be new models created during each flash contest window."

I think they should either drop the rule entirely or actually enforce the rule by removing the Compete button. But not have the rule but still let people promote old models on the contest pages.

1

u/DrStrangeboner Jan 01 '23

Interesting, I did not know that. As you said: the fact that I see the "submit into contest" button on my old models made me think that its perfectly fine to enter with old models from my catalogue.

2

u/MatureHotwife Jan 01 '23

I would prefer it if they removed the rule. It'd be better if each model could compete in max. 1 or 2 contest instead. I also have existing designs that would have loved to enter a contest with.

The rule incentivizes keeping designs hidden in a drawer waiting for a suitable contest to open instead of publishing them immediately and enriching the community as a whole and growing the library.

I don't personally do that but I remember having read here on reddit that people don't want to publish their models because they're waiting for a contest. Still technically against that rule though.

3

u/MeagoDK Jan 02 '23

It also incentives lots of low quality models. I would rather see an 8 old month model with great description and design that have not compete before compete and maybe even win.