What's this #stoptheslop thing I keep seeing tagged on models?

Yeah it's a protest thing. Someone kicked it off as a tag people add to their posts and complaints, the idea being that if enough uploads and community posts pile up with it, the platform might finally add a proper filter for low-effort AI generated models. So no, tagging doesn't trigger anything automatic, it's basically noise til they notice, but it's noise on purpose.

Here's the part that saves you some clicks though: there is alredy a filter buried in your settings. Go to Settings, then Recommendation Preferences, then Blocked Categories, and you can block the 'Generative 3D Model' category. Problem is it only works if uploaders actually categorize their stuff honestly, and a lot of them don't, which is exactly why you're seeing the same lizard twenty times with different color profiles. For figuring out which version actually prints, my rule is simple: only trust uploads with real photos of a printed part, ideally multiple angles, plus a plate layout in the slicer. If every photo looks like a shiny render or has that wierd AI sheen, skip it. Also check the comments before downloading anything. If nobody has actually printed it and said so, that tells you plenty. Boost count means nothing these days since the slop farms rake in boosts on volume.

On the remix question, no, a genuien fix doesn't count as slop and most people behind this tag would agree. Adding a thicker base, patching a thin wall, splitting somthing so it prints without an AMS, that's real work and it's the kind of thing the site was built for. What's being targeted is the pipeline stuff, generated mesh to slicer to upload with zero test prints, posted a dozen times a day with slight variations. If you post your fix, say what you changed and show the print. That alone puts you in a completley different bucket from the copy-paste crowd. Honestly the whole thing got worse fast, and the traffic those models pull in is probaly why nothing gets enforced, but the tag at least makes the annoyance visible.

I've had decent luck checking the file contents themselves before printing anything suspicious looking. Open the STL in your slicer and look at the triangle count and how the surfaces actually shade, because alot of the generated stuff has that lumpy organic noise on what should be flat faces, and no amount of recoloring hides it. Also worth noting the blocked category trick has a second weakness beyond dishonest categorizing, since some of these uploads get shoved into Toys or Art where they blend in with legitimate models. I ended up just curating a follows list of designers whose stuff I've printed successfully and browsing from there instead of the front page.

I got burned by one of those lizard copies last month, printed fine until you got to the joints and they were all fused solid. Wasted a whole plate on it. Now I check the uploader's profile before I bother, if they've got 40 uploads from the same week that all look the same, I'm out. Also started printing just one small piece from a new model first instead of the whole plate, saves a lot of filament on the garbage ones. Your nephew's better off with one of the older versions that's been sitting around a couple years with real makes attached, those have already proven themselves.