nytimes / Fech

Deprecated. Please see https://github.com/dwillis/Fech for a maintained fork.
http://nytimes.github.io/Fech/
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Non-standard field names for F3XN, F3N #76

Open sahilchinoy opened 9 years ago

sahilchinoy commented 9 years ago

Is there a reason for the difference in key names between responses for different F3 form types? For example, F3N filings get a col_a_individual_contributions_itemized field, while F3XN filings get a col_a_individuals_itemized field. I know the forms are different, but the fields seem similar enough to be standardized.

F3N F3XN
col_a_individual_contributions_unitemized col_a_individuals_unitemized
col_a_total_individual_contributions col_a_individual_contribution_total
col_a_political_party_contributions col_a_political_party_committees
col_a_pac_contributions col_a_other_political_committees_pacs
col_a_transfers_from_authorized col_a_transfers_from_aff_other_party_cmttees
col_a_offset_to_expenditures col_a_offsets_to_expenditures
dwillis commented 9 years ago

It's complicated. Form 3 and Form 3X are for different kinds of committees, which is one reason for the variation in field names. Our policy is to adhere as closely to the field names on the form and not apply standardization beyond that, but I can see where cases of pluralization could be considered.

sahilchinoy commented 9 years ago

Makes sense. I'll try to maintain that table of similar field names, let me know if you might find it helpful. Thanks for all your work on this.