Loading Data and Contributing Large Datasets

If you have a large amount of data that you want to load into Freebase you should first have a schema designed for it. The Beginner's Guide to Creating Schemas is a good place to start if you haven't created schemas before, and the Data Modeling Guide provides some rules of thumb to keep in mind when developing them. If you have questions about schema creation, there are many members of our data-modeling email discussion list who are happy to help.

You should also take a look at the topics listed under Content Guidelines and Policies to make sure your data is appropriate for Freebase.

If you want to contribute large datasets of more than 1,000 items to Freebase, you should first contact us so we can review your data and work out the best way to load it into the database. Chances are we'll recommend that you first upload it, by means of a mqlWrite command, to the sandbox so we can review it there.

If you're unfamiliar with the mechanics of mqlWrite, we'll do our best to walk you through it, or work out an alternative arrangement. We are also working on tools that will make it easier to directly import typical spreadsheet data.

In some cases, where the data is in the form of a simple list of topics that should be added to a type, you can load it into the sandbox by means of our List Import Wizard in the Schema Editor. Just navigate to the type where you want to add the topics, click Add More, and then Import a List to get started. This tool will also attempt to reconcile any new topics you want to create against existing Freebase topics.

On Freebase.com, we do have a write throttle that prevents any user from loading more than 10,000 primitives (think of these as individual facts) on any one day. We can increase this limit under special circumstances after we've had a chance to talk with you about your upload.

Feel free to post to the discussion on this topic if you have a bigger load that you're planning to do or any related questions or comments.

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