This paper is a brief review of three current efforts to provide an open and transparent path to the automated production of event data: • EL:DIABLO: an open, user-friendly modular system for the acquisition and coding of web-based news sources which is intended to allow small research teams to generate customized event data sets with a minimum of effort • PETRARCH: a Python-based event data coder using fully-parsed Penn Treebank input • The Open Event Data Alliance, a new professional organization for the promotion and provision of fully transparent open event data All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer