FAQ
From CloutWiki
What is this?
You've found the Chicago CloutWiki, Illinois' first encyclopedic, on-line source of political history. We've started with the Chicago City Council and the Chicago committeemen of the Cook County Democratic Party, but over time we'll add more.
How did this get started?
This grew from a discussion between Mike Fourcher and Jay Paul Deratany. They thought it would be useful to have a place where people could find an unbiased history of how Chicago's leaders got started and who they're friends with.
Hasn't this been done before?
Oh yes, a dozen times. A special debt is owed to the late David K. Fremon, whose Chicago Politics: Ward By Ward is a masterpiece. Unfortunately the book's last printing is 1988, and Fremon passed away since then. We're hoping to pick up that torch and bring it to the web, which is really the best way for this kind of information to be distributed.
Hey, how come you don't have an entry for 'so-and-so'?
We just haven't gotten to it. Writing factually-accurate entries is time consuming. We've made an effort to get as much as possible right here (please let us know if we missed something) and if we can't get it right, we leave it out - for the time being. If there's a glaring omission that's too much for you to handle, please write an entry and submit it to us.
Who wrote this?
A group of six writers, one web designer and one patient benefactor. More about the contributors.
What are your sources?
In most cases we list our sources at the bottom of an entry. Our guiding rule was to use information in the public domain so as to remove as much bias as possible. Since we lacked access to the city's rich daily newspaper archives, we are sure we've missed a lot of great stories and information, but that will have to taken care of in a much better-funded future version.
So, what's your angle? Are you guys making money on this? We wish. This is a volunteer effort. We'd like to get this site to pay for itself (hosting costs, etc) someday. But for now that's just a vision, not a reality.
How can I become a CloutWiki contributor?
Thanks for offering to help! Before you do anything, please join our quarterly mailing list. This will keep you up-to-date on all our changes and plans for the site.
Also, see the question above, we're not paying people to write. This is a volunteer effort for now.
We definitely want to expand our coverage – there's so much more to talk about. If you want to write, please pick an example of someone we haven't covered and send us your entry at editor(at)cloutwiki(dot)org. Please remember, you must source as much as you can from publicly available sources, preferably linked to on the web. And no screeds. If you've got a neighborhood beef, don't waste our time.
This is great! I'm with a newspaper/a blog/the media and I'd like to use some of the content here. We'd be happy to talk to you. Drop us a line at editor (at) cloutwiki (dot) org.
