Given the grim state of the SD3 2B release, it's become clear that the community needs to expand the usage of alternative models beyond Stability AI's old and new models. There are many challenges to moving to alternative models, such as missing and lacking tools, limited inference options, and a void of finetuned models. Civitai has a huge pool of creators that can help produce new finetuned models for alternative architectures, which will help more people discover them and motivate the development of better supporting tools. By giving a chance for new models to shine, we can discover new ideas, encourage competition, and innovation, and hopefully enjoy better models in the future. I want to suggest a few ideas on how Civitai can promote the creation of more checkpoints, and Loras based on alternative architectures:
1. Missions for creators - training of new models and adaptation of existing models.
2. Help creators who are making alternative models grow their audience by creating a new featured block on the main page dedicated to alternative models.
3. Competitions dedicated to alternative models - they don't have to be as big as the current ones.
4. Weekly challenges for resource creation with participation prizes.
5. Creation of a leaderboard for alternative models with a focus on contribution and effort.
6. Bonus cosmetics - for example, a special frame given for the creation of alternative resources.
7. Section with a model list dedicated to alternative resources to make them easier to find.
I'm sure that others can suggest many more ideas.
I've submitted these ideas as a feature request for Civitai: [link]. Hopefully, a few of them will be adopted.