Wikipedia:U.S. political contributions transparency project
This is a pilot project proposal to add information tables to the articles of U.S. federal elected officials using open data about the political contributions they have received.
Background
Scope
Articles about elected federal officials: Congressional Representatives and Senators
Sourcing reliable data
- Opensecrets.org
Presentation (UI)
Mockup
Bot coding
- Spec
- Pull from opensecrets api
- Format a table in Wikimarkup
- Use a template, similar to Template:Infobox
- Centralized updates to markup and template provides structure for data
- Insert table at bottom of article above references
- Include a formatted citation
- Update periodically
- GitHub:
Here is the bot that was created. I have no idea if it's valid or valuable. Would love input: https://github.com/h4ck3rm1k3/federal-election-commision-aggregation
- Bot approvals group: WP:BAG
- Figure out how to reconcile data on Wikipedia vs. data in OpenSecrets
- There are will be discrepancies
- Added footnotes, links, etc. to individual wiki pages
- Figure out whether the bot should overwrite users' input, etc.
- There are will be discrepancies
Community approval
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_US_Congress
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_Politics/Money_and_politics_task_force
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_U.S._Congress/Congressional_districts
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_U.S._Congress/Members
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States/Members#WikiProject_U.S._Government
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Federal_Government_Legislative_Data
- Portal:Government_of_the_United_States
- Village pump proposals
- Village pump tech
- Bot approvals group
Maintenance
Timeline
Questions
- Can opensecrets data be used directly?
- Is opensecrets a primary or secondary source for this data?
- Are opensecrets categorizations neutral and uncontroversial
- Are top-10 donor/donation lists useful and encyclopedic?
Relevant groups
- Represent.Us
- OpenSecrets.org
- Maplight.org
- Cato Foundation
- Sunlight Foundation
- RootStrikers