Confused about Printables.com
Someone mentioned the Prusa World Map to me as a possible resource to find somebody to print some 3D files I’ve been working on.
I found the world.prusa3d.com page using my phone but all I could see was a map and there was virtually nothing that could be done with it. Then I tried my laptop and there the web page showed me people in my area on the map. It also had links to their profiles on Printables.com. At least that’s what it seems like. That's confusing to me. what site am I on, anyway? That's a rhetorical question.
I could find no documentation about the site, no FAQ page, no About page, nothing that explains what the site is for or how to use it. Admittedly, I don’t always see things right under my nose, but if I spend 30 minutes poking around a site and can’t find any information about it on the site itself it seems to me something is very wrong with the site design.
Clicking on a link to a person's Printable.com profile takes me there. That I understand. But once there? It gets confusing again.
From what I can tell there are quite a few people on Printable.com that are in my area who are offering to either print things, provide tech support, or to be involved ins something called Show & Tell, whatever that is, and whatever that is remains unknown because I can find no explanation of what these things mean.
So where did I go wrong? What am I missing, or is the user basically on his own to figure things out?
Is my observation that many of the people on Printables.com don’t seem to really be active there valid?, that they sign up and download files to print and that’s about all?
Pretty much everyone who’s profile I have looked at seems to have been awarded numerous badges. If there is any reason to give this badge business any credibility for anything meaningful I haven’t found it. Is there?
Finally, and most importantly to me right now, I tried to send messages to a number of people near me to ask if they would be willing to print my models, but from what I’ve heard most of them will probably never know it because there seems to be no notification system and they would have to log in and look to see. Is that accurate? (Oddly the messages I sent appear under the heading Inbox when common convention would seem to indicate they should be under heading Sent. Did my messages even go out?)
Thank you.
RE:
My guess is that many of those listed on the world map are inactive here and seldom if ever check or respond to messages.
There are several others within a very reasonable distance to me, but I never remember seeing them active either on the forum or the prints section.
I also don't know where they get map coordinates. Mine is in the general vicinity of where I live, but about 3/4 of a mile to the northwest. I've been in the 'edit profile' section but I don't remember any option to change or correct it.
Many users have all or most badges grayed out, and that did confuse me at first.
There's a marker on my neighbour's house, just not his, or mine. It belongs to someone, presumably close by, who seems to have signed up and forgotten. My marker is in the middle of the river a couple of hundred metres away...
I do remember that in the early days markers were exact but they had to be fuzzed to prevent marking the locations of people able to afford high-tech kit for the convenience of the criminal fraternity.
In the long forgotten days before COVID19 I messaged all the users within an hour of here proposing a local group meeting. No replies.
I just looked again, there are 60 odd users listed within an hour of here, half a dozen within walking distance. Three of these have visible collections and one of them has uploaded one print, the rest have never been active.
I couldn't find an active user closer than 50 miles away and she is on the far side of an inlet on an island which would take four hours to reach by car and ferry, or I *could* take a boat faster but she's a couple of hours walk from the nearest safe harbour.
At 60 miles radius I hit four cities and six universities so it's not entirely impossible to meet other users.
The world map is a good idea poorly implemented. In larger cities it seems there is a reasonable chance of finding a user who might be able to help but it's going to take a while to find them.
If there is any reason to give this badge business any credibility for anything meaningful I haven’t found it. Is there?
Not that I can tell. The associated Prusametres simply encourage mass uploading of untested files and a great dilution in the quality of prints on the system.
Cheerio,