Freesound Forums

I don't know if any other Freesounders have noticed that we're coming up on 100K samples uploaded.

I think it'd be fun to honor that somehow. Please note that I am not an admin, and to that end this would be purely an unofficial user based project.

My thoughts were:
- A contest of some sort,
- Tracks/songs with 100K samples in them (ridiculous, but would be awesome),
- Create a project (video, music, poem/written word, sound installations, etc.) including and based upon the 100K sample

Any and all ideas are welcome!

Mybe not a contest to create a song with 100k samples (which then of course would mean you'd have to use every single sample from this site and I suppose a few more, because not all numbers actually have a sample attached (due to it being deleted or whatever)).
With 100k sounds, there are a lot that have a ton of downloads, I have one sample that's downloaded over 3500 times, but there are others with many more. These are obviously high quality samples and much liked. And that's all fine, but there's also a lot to be found that's unnoticed. I, for example, also have a file with just 1 download. This doesn't necessarily mean the sounds are low quality, but they could just be very specific or so rare, nobody ever needed it.
So why not use this milestone to take a look at those samples that stand out by having been download hardly ever or in some cases maybe even have 0 downloads. Hunt for these, find some hidden gems perhaps. Show the uploaders of those sounds and everybody that these sounds too are valued. The contest could be, take these sounds and make a whole project with them. An animation, short film, song or even full album, whatever your specialism, use it to show respect to the little sounds that make Freesound big.
Join in on the Freesound 100k Rare Sound Extravaganza today!

So, any good?

I really like that idea.

As I understand it:
Take samples that have been downloaded 0 times and develop projects comprised solely of them (and another medium if necessary).

Then after 100K is reached, we could possibly showcase them somewhere.

Thanks nemoDaedalus.

Keep the ideas coming!

I would just point out that all sounds start with 0 downloads... So in order for this to be meaningfull, we would have to agree to use samples that have 0 downloads but are older than a certain age.
This minimum age could be 10 days, 30 days, anything we agree on... But so that we can exclude the very recently uploaded files.

Also, do we need to go with 0 downloads or would a very low download count (say 1 or 2, be allowed) ?
Maybe we could set a total limit instead: something like the summed up downloads of all the samples in the song would have to be 10 or lower. So, if you use a sample that has been downloaded 10 times, then all other samples in the song must have been downloaded 0 times...

I thin it is a great idea and may bring into the spotlight some really nice samples that have, somehow gone unnoticed so far.
I also think it is a really nice dare! - should this thread be moved to the dare section?

Yeah, good idea, samples have to be older than a certain age, I'd say a month, and they have to have less than 10 downloads. Obviously if several people find the same sound to use, the number of downloads rises.

I was thinking, it would be really cool if some Freesound representative could contact some audio equipment manufacturers and ask them if they are willing to sponsor the contest by donating some prizes. Do some advertising on other creative communities, ccMixter, deviantART, flickr, Panoramio, creativecommons.org and social media, YouTube, Facebook, whatever. That should get some attention and pleases the sponsors. Throw in a few Freesound t-shirts and we could have a pretty nice prize pool.

Fantastic, that idea just came to me last night!

Actually, I was thinking that I'd personally send the winner (assuming a voting system would be available) my Digital Reference DR-CX1 Cardioid Microphone rather than getting into potential legal hassles with sponsors. Naturally, sending mic cables (which I would also provide) with the mic would be ideal. Here is some info about the mic:

http://www.digital-reference.com/products/dispProd.cfm?t=wired&sT=studio&sel=0

It's not the best mic for field recording, but if one or more users would pitch in some other gear, we could not only get new interest in the site, but also get renewed interest in it.

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Per the advertising and promotion, I think that's a great idea. I'm sure that there is at least one visual artist who is willing to pitch in somewhere in the Freesound community.

However, the advertising/promoting would have to substantial enough to:
A) Get current users to start to think differently about how they use Freesound.
B) Get potential users interested not only in joining, but also contributing (perhaps requiring all entrants to have at least 10 - 20 uploaded sounds).

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Per the time limit constraint, I aslo agree that excluding audio files uploaded after a certain date, or within a particular time-frame, would be ideal for this.

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If you two agree (and I encourage other Freesounders to consider this), we should start to draw up preliminary, tentative rules. Keep in mind that they would be strictly preliminary and would most likely have to be revised a number of times.

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I'd personally prefer to keep this as strictly belonging to the community. Vis.: keep out corporate/business sponsors so we can adhere to our own rules. However, that's just my standpoint.

Cheers!

interesting and fun idea, I like it
poor lonely not-downloaded samples, so sad in those magnetic cages... longing for a short moment of fame
imho, with no prizes (other than simbolic) rules are not so important. hearth is important
It would be nice a place into FS to store these compositions, to let users hear it without an external link. may be just a separate directory? this could work also for future competition

Is anyone else having trouble finding samples that are older than 1 month and have 0 downloads?

Use Google. Search for:
site:freesound.org "0 downloads"
You should get some results.

i did run the search and although it aparently finds some results, when I open the links i always find tht the files have at least one download.

Users project43d and fs2 seem to have collectively downloaded every single sample on Freesound.
Now, these are either VERY patient humans, some sort of download bots or an internal Freesound bot that is doing something...

I propose we ignore these "users" for the purpose of counting sample downloads.
I wonder what they are. I sus pect that if they are download bots maybe they should be excluded/banned...

Well, the general idea was not exactly 0 downloads (also because if one participates downloads a few of these, it doesn't have 0 downloads anymore), but something like 10 or less.

Copy that.
I am good to go then.

Lets see what samples I can find and what I can make with them...

I'm glad you guys are working out all the kinks in this. I've drawn up some general rules/guidelines and have given them a home at:

http://adamell.wordpress.com/100k/

Feedback is always welcome.

I just realized that we're going to need some general closing date.

My thoughts were no later than one month after the 100K sample is reached.

Thoughts?

Just as a note, Freesound had 241 samples uploaded in the last 48h.
Taking that as the average (looks a bit high, actually... but anyway) and the current number of samples in the database (92292), it should take about 2 months to reach the target number of 100k samples.

Making the deadline 1 month from date of reaching 100k samples would place it roughly 3 months from today.
As the number of samples uploaded in the last 48h looks a bit high, I would say the closing date would actually be closer to 4 months from now.

It works for me.
Plus it gives enough time to try and build the momentum of the whole thing.

Is it OK to have more than one entry per participant?

I've also noticed that upload amounts have been on the uprise lately (Bram, if your reading this could you provide March - May upload data stats by chance to see what kind of changes, if any, have been taking place?)

Per your question, I don't see why not. I too was thinking of mixing it up with multiple entries. The more the merrier!

Hey guys,

I like this idea. I also really like the idea of user-created competitions. If anyone feels like contacting some hard/software manufacturers and see if we can get more prizes that way, please do go ahead. If you need some kind of official seal-of-approval from me, I can give you that.

I think the rules should be stricter though: "only one sound from freesound, minimum"? I would change that to "you can ONLY use sounds from freesound that meet the requirements and you can't use the sounds you uploaded yourself."

The official plan right now is to have fs2.0 ready by October 1st. This coincides perhaps a bit too well with the competition (as there will obviously be bugs and things to fix - and we will have to do the transition and beta testing!!). Maybe it makes more sense to wait for fs2.0 and have this competition as a welcoming competition? I'm not sure, please discuss!

I really like the idea of requiring uploads of samples.

- Bram

By the way, a.e., no need to ask people for their contact details, if they provide their username and the location of the work they made I can get to the email addresses. Perhaps that is better.

Also, it's always best to give an upper limit to the number of entries per person.

- Bram

I agree with most of Bram's comments:
- there should be a limit to the number of entries per participant.
- since Bram has volunteered to provide you the email addresses of competition winners, I also agree that that is a better process.
- I think it is great that participants need to have uploaded files to Freesound in order to be eligible for winning/prizes - really a great way to encourage people to upload sounds rather than just download them. Top marks, man!!
- users not allowed to use samples they uploaded themselves.

I only disagree with Bram with regards to the number of sounds that must come from Freesound.
If for the competition we are trying to encourage all sorts of entries, then, someone making a short video story may wish need to include speech. Or a particular type of work may require naration...
I would suggest that we either limit the entries to sound works (music, compositions, remixes...) whereby ALL sampples would need to come from Freesound and obey the rules with regards to date of sample and number of downloads. But I fear this may not have been what a.e intended.
If we allow works other than sonic compositions, then I would say that anything except speech or narration would have to comply with the rules...

With regards to the rule on number of downloads.
- The user would need to provide the ist of all Freesound samples used, with credits to the uploader.
- Bram, is ther ea way to verify that at the time the user downloaded a particular samlpe it had not been downloaded more than 10 times?
- I would also like to make the the maximum download limit 10. We are really after the sounds that have not been heard before. Aren't we?

Great competition.
I need to start working on my entries !!!
Going to try and get some friends engaged and well.

> Bram, is ther ea way to verify that at the time the user downloaded a particular samlpe it had not been downloaded more than 10 times?

yes, kind of... we log al downloads per sample, per user...

- Bram