Freesound Forums

Thanks you guys for such thoughtful, and sound input.
I've updated the rules incorporating your latest thoughts.

Bram:
-2 entry limit added
-solely Freesound.org sound requirement (with a hint toward exceptions for film/spoken word pieces).
-No sounds you've uploaded may be used. Remixes of your sounds by other users may be used.
-Considering the current prize (the mic) Plan B. I'm not sure where to start with contacting potential sponsors.
-No more "personal contact" info required, as your assistance in matters of contacting the winner via email will suffice.
-A seal-of-approval/endorsement from you would be fantastic, but I'm curious to know exactly what that would mean for the contest.

AlienXXX
-I'm not sure how to incorporate external audio requirements into the rules. If the project is film/spoken word, i think that only voice/dialog should be allowed. But even then, we would have to require more involvement of Freesound audio than there would be for other types of projects.
-I'd really like to keep entries to mixed media, because that way it provides people more ways to express their ideas on how Freesound.org sounds can be used.
-I've also incorporated the requirement of provability into the rules. While they aren't really set in stone, I did mention that entrants should start to document their downloads for future use.

Thank you two for these really great ideas. I hope I didn't miss anything, but please let me know if I did.

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

Not sure if this is a gap in the rules but the rules as listed here:

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

state that new members <3mths must have uploaded 5 sounds but since there is no such rule for older members, older members do not have to have contributed any sounds to be eligible! Is this what was really intended?

Cheers

David

Brilliant!
Thanks for the tip. I completely missed that!

I figure that users that have been around for three months prior to the current date should have no fewer than 10 samples uploaded. (new users only need 5)

I've updated the page again (see rule 9). Thanks again!

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

I wish that was true, however, many users have joined Freesound for years and never updated a sample.
There may be good reasons for that. Some people are just shy and think their sounds are not good enough.
But the reality is that most simply can't be bothered.

Anyway, any users (old or new) who wish to be eligible to win now know that they need to upload 10 samples.

competition could be splitted in two fields / or compositions could be tagged in two ways: PURIST, where samples are used as it is without manipulation - and FREE, no limit in smashing and modulating. (only for fun, I do not consider one technique better than the other)

I ask again: is it possible to have a space inside Freesound to host these composition, maybe temporarily? better than to have dozens of external links...

Cajo:
Per you question, Bram would have to answer that. I do agree in that a page of links wouldn't be the best solution for a contest, but as of now another option hasn't revealed itself.

I'm intrigued by the idea of sub-dividing the entry types, but am not sure how well it would work for a contest of this nature.

Looking toward Bram's idea of making this an official Freesound.org 2.0 contest, I think the idea of sub-division of entries would definitely work, and probably more so than a 'rare' sound competition.

I'd love to hear everybody's thoughts on this, and thanks for the wonderful input!

Cheers!

Hello a.e

It has been nice to see this idea develop.
If I may, I would like only to make 2 more suggestions:

Firstly: Dates

Decide if this is going to be a "100k sound competition" or a "Freesound 2.0 opening" competition. (could it be both?)
Best to speak to Bram on this one.
How you position the purpose of the competition will probably influence the opening and closing dates for submissions and the date for the announcement of winners.

A date does not necessarily have to be agreed and published at this stage, but milestones should be set:
For example: if the competition is going to be part of the Freesound 2.0 launch you cuold say "opens on day XXX", "last submission before Freesound 2.0 goes live (date to be annouced)", posting winners list "30 days after Freesound 2.0 launch".

Secondly: Rules

You have asked for and acted on feedback from various people so far, which is great.
You should now decide on the final set of rules and post these together with the set of dates (or milestones) determined from the point above.
As the rules have not been finalized, I have not yet started on my piece(s). Why? Imagine I made a 3 minute piece and the rules then changed to say "2 minutes maximum duration"...

This post has been around for a while now, I guess people who wanted to contribute with suggestions have had their chance. The rules should now be finalized to allow people to start working.
After all, as with many things, mostly there are no "good" or "bad" ideas when it comes to rules for a competition of this sort. They simply need to be clear.

Further postings will keep people updated on what is going on.
I guess you could start the competition with a post in the "Dare the Community" forum. Participants would post to that thread with a link to their entry.
If later a central repositorium is created in Freesound to host all entries, it should be easy to copy existing submissions there and ask people to submit any future submissions to the Freesound repositorium.

AlienXXX

This post has been around for a while now, I guess people who wanted to contribute with suggestions have had their chance. The rules should now be finalized to allow people to start working.

I don't really get it, would you please just give a few simple instructions? If the brainstorming stage is finished, that is...

D

Hi dobroide,

I am just suggesting that the rules should be finalized.
If the suggestion box is never closed then suggestions will keep comming in, meaning the rules will never be agreed and finished.
The rules need to be agreed before the competition can start.

That is my suggestion... It is not up to me to give any instructions. This is a.e's competition, so it is up to him to decide.

agree with AlienXXX: it's time to stop brainstorming.
and to set at least opening/closing date & min/max duration of compositions.

I suggest to have rules and advertising inside Freesound too, not only in a.e. website.
I, and supposedly all FS users, will anyway thanks a.e., whenever the rules are written

Thanks for all the suggestions. I actually still have a few ideas to share, but first things first:

1. Rules: http://adamell.wordpress.com/100k/
2. I've contacted Bram about getting the rules their own page on Freesound.org. I also asked about getting a "Dare" thread started, as he is the only one who can post on that board.
3. Closing date: October 31 (that gives one month of Freesound 2.0 to get some face time, because it's set to be release on October 1)

I was actually thinking about having two contests, and close them both at the same time and award the two winners prizes.
A. Each user may enter into each contest only once (a total of two entries), but my not be able to win both contests.
B. The contests would be: 100K Rare Audio Project (the one we've all been developing), and the second would could be the Freesound 2.0 Contest. The latter would be less strict about it's rules, but still require users to have a certain amount of samples uploaded before being considered for winning.
C. Perhaps the second contest could follow the idea that Cajo came up with by separating it into sub-categories. I was just hoping that the second be official and approved by Bram.

I'm not really sure what to do with this, but I don't think that just the 100K contest will suffice for the Freesound 2.0 release; after all, it's many years in the making.

AlienXXX:
I understand your reservations about starting your project, but am pretty sure that the rules that have come together are pretty solid. I'd say go ahead and start working! (no time length requirement will be added, I can assure you)

Etc:
1. I've created a page (that I will have to update) to host all the links in addition to the thread.

Voting:
I'm not sure how this will be accomplished yet, but I did come up with some guidelines and things to look for:
1. Is it original?
2. Does it adhere to a single theme?
3. Does it exemplify the rare audio samples used as being just as productive as the most downloaded ones?

Let me know your thoughts on all this please.
Sorry for making you read so much!!

The only rules I see that need to be finalised are how to verify the sound(s) used met the criteria.

Another thought... If the competitor only needs to use one sound meeting the criteria then I can't see the point. I could use 50 sounds that don't meet the criteria and 0.5 seconds of one that does. How does that meet the objective of the comp? I would rather see a rule that requires the majority of the sound in the project (ie more than 50%) using a sound(s) that meet the criteria.

Cheers

David

Hi a.e,

Sorry if I was being too pushy, but I would really like to see this move forward.
I agree that some elements still need to be finalized: such has the voting/selection process.

As I understand it, the points now being discussed relate to the management of the competition itself. The actual rules seem to be pretty much set, in particular in terms of what sounds are allowed, which is what I need to start working.

David (higginsdj)
I have not actually checked the latest version of the rules, but as I remember the "at least one sound that meets the criteria" was dropped and replaced by "all sounds must come from Freesound and have been downloaded less than 10 times". The only exceptions would be if your project contains dialogue or narration, in which case you would have to record these, but all other sounds would have to meet the criteria above.
Please check the link that a.e has posted and check the last version of the rules.

As to verification of the sounds used adhering to the criteria, I would say there are 2 important aspects to this:
1) The user must provide a full list of all samples used with credits to the uploaders. - This is after all in the general rules of Freesound: You must credit all samples used, wherever possible. Projects submitted without this list cannot be judged and therefore would have to be excluded from the competition.
The list must contain the SAMPLE NAME and the SAMPLE AUTHOR, a linkt to the Freesound sample would be a useful but not essential.
2) Should there be any dispute about the number of times a sample was downloaded before being used for the competition entry, Ihave already checked with Bram that all downloads of each sample are logged (see one of the previous posts n this thread).

Hope this answers your questions.

Microscopia, not sure what the confusion is but my understanding is that the competition is to celebrate 100K Uploads and to encourage more uploads. I agree, the comp is unlikely to change peoples habits where they have become entrenched in doing things a certain way but it may encourage some people to simply have a go. And, having 'had a go', some may continue to do so. This is a very small competition and one that is not designed to change the world!

Cheers

David

Hello everybody! Wow! There has been a lot happening within a very short period of time on here!

To everyone:
- I really don't mean to upset any of you. I'm sorry if I've become somewhat brash about this subject.
- This is a community driven contest, and to that end all of our ideas are valid and each and every one of them is valuable.
- I wan't to represent all opinions! Everybody's thoughts on this matter are worthy of discussion.

Thank you everybody for your input, but, as many of you have pointed out, we need a better method for representing this contest.

And, to be sure, this contest, when I thought of sharing it with you, had one purpose: To celebrate a huge number that was reached by all of us.

A few things:
1. I still haven't heard from Bram. When I do, I'll ask the community (vis., you!) for your opinion on what to do next.
2. I'm vacationing (as of tomorrow, June 23) and won't be able to respond as frequently as I have been.
3. It really means a lot to me that you've all kind of made this 'your' competition, as that was my intention in the first place.
4. Yesterday was the first day of summer (in the US, at least), and I hope you all are getting plenty of sunshine!
5. I'm going to be thinking about the approach to a community-driven competition over during my leave, and will most likely come back with several new ideas.
6. Please do have fun with this. I've been very successful in finding the samples I need that adhere to the current guidelines/rules, and been very happy with some of the results so far.
7. Before anything is drastically changed to the current contest, I will await a reply from Bram.

Talk to you soon about all this,
a.e

p.s.
I've noticed a lot of users talk about a 10 download limit; it was actually changed to a 15 download limit about a week ago, and I'm sorry for the confusion.

p.p.s.
Oh my goodness, it's officially summer. YAY!

sorry for the joke, but the Marx Brothers' Contract dialogue is coming to my mind ...
http://www.offbalance.com/art4.html

D

a.e

I am certainly not upset. Although at some point I was a bit pushy in trying to get some sort of resolution on dates and so on. I was fearing this project might stall if a lot of discussion was taking place but no decisions were being made.

If I have not said so before, I think this is a great idea. A competition or "dare" is a chance for people to get involved.
You are absolutely right: ultimately it is done for the fun and the challenge of it.
I have tried to kickstart a couple of dares, but never got any buy-in. So well done you for all the replies you have got so far - meaning people are interested.

I think you have done a great job collecting feedback so far. Remember though, in the end you are unlikely to please everyone. The rules will necessarily have to exclude some kinds of work or some applicants - this is required in order to provide a criteria or a basis to accept and later judge the works submitted.

I respectfully disagree with Microscopia.
The competition does a great job at 'celebrating' Freesound by requiring people to download and upload stuff, encouraging all users to be 2-way users. I personally think that is great and original.
I hope that it will encorage changes in behaviour:
- make people look at infrequently downloaded samples, to begin with.
- Get "one-way" users to change their behaviour in a fun and inspiring way.

As I have said, it will not please or appeal to everyone, but hopefully those that do participate will have fun and learn in the process.

Also, let me be very clear that I have nothing against people who just upload sounds to Freesound - They are great and thank you all for your contributions!
I don't even have anything against the people who just download stuff: Freesound has been intentionally designed to allow that, and I personally feel that "free" is as important as "sound". So, even those users are welcome.
Now, what I can say is that you do get more out of Freesound if you are a "2-way user". So if this competition encourages people to do that, I think it is great.

So thanks again to a.e for having the idea.

anyway... there is a forum named Your work, made with Freesound(s)
where every user is allowed to promote any work made with the help of Freesound samples:
e-v-e-r-y users, even those which never upload

Hey everybody!

I just got back from vacation, and am eager to get back to the drawing board, as it were, with this project.

While I am partial to my initial idea, I don't think it embodies everybody's thoughts. Needless to say, I really want it to. So, I consequently propose starting over completely with a few things in mind.

1. A competition created by and for the users.
2. Possibly commemorating/recognizing the FS 2.0 release (October 1, 2010 if all goes well).
3. Anything and everything is open for discussion.

I also propose we start a new thread somewhere, perhaps not even on the Freesound.org board.

In any case, if you would like to either continue this competition, or scrap it and start a new one (maybe even sanctioned and promoted by Bram on the main page), please just make your opinion heard!

I think that collectively our thoughts will iron themselves out over time, so please just take it easy and know that crowdsorced ideas take time to develop.

Cheers!
a.e

Also, for those of you who have been working on a 100K project I would love to hear what you have. If indeed you were looking forward to wining the mic, I still don't mind sending it out to the most qualified entrant when you're finished with your work. Let me know!

is this still on?