Cross Referencing Claims

One core aspect of the Security Force Monitr’s approach is our commitment to structure claims made by citations “as is” or as close as possible to what the original citaiton evidenced. This, of course, raises the question of how certain claims are coded as accpeted and other claims coded as conflict.

To this we harness our structured data and use it as a cross referencing system. As a result claims are balanced against one another and where there is a conflict or discrepency between two or more claims the Monitor can arrive at a decision of which claim can be coded as accepted or conflict.

Cross refencing is core to our approach because we do not grade one Publication as any better than any other Publication. In our experience official government webpages have misidentified the geography of their country, misidentified senior military commanders and contained other errors or ommissions. This does not make them “low confidence” or “untrustworthy” sources of information, and that same principal applies to every other Publication.

The Montior’s data structure allows for a range of cross refencing, comparing units or persons to one another, to more complex analysis. A public note should always accompany any cross referencing analysis, and the various citations used should also be listed in the citation field for the claim. Some example below show how cross referencing data can be used to determine when claims are erroneous or otherwise should be codeded as conflict.

Incorrect Commander Citations from 2023-02-04, 2024-10-11 and 2025-01-18 evidence that Liam Johnson was commander of 18 Brigade on those dates. As a result the data has one contigious Posting for Johnson from at least 2023-02-04 to at least 2025-01-18. One other citation states that Theodore Smith was commander of 18 Brigade “in 2024”. In this case we would cross reference the claims made about other brigade commanders to see if any of those other brigades had a similar non-contigious commander like Smith. If not, then the claim about Smith could be coded as conflict.

Too Senior of Commander A common issue is when a senior commander is idenfied as the “commander” of a low level unit. Usually this means that they are ultimately in charge of the unit, but not the actual commander of the low level unit. For example, a citation states that Major General John Smith was commander of 22 Battalion. Cross referencing the postings of other major generals allows us to see that other citations evidence major generals in country command divisions, which command brigades, which in turn command battalions. Claims for other postings evidence that brigades are usually commanded by brigader generals (a lower rank than Major General), and battalions are commanded by colonels (a lower rank than brigader general). As a result the claim could coded as conflict.

Typo in Unit Name Typos are common issue that can be resolved through cross referencing. For example, a citation states that Elijah Williams recieved an award as commander of Police Station 1 for the actions of his officers in South Township on 2023-03-05. Other citations evidence that Williams was commander of Police Station 12 from at least 2022-12-02 to at least 2024-05-15. Additionally, other citations evidence that Police Station 12 operates in (has a Positioning of) South Township from at least 2021-09-06 to at least 2025-01-24. No other citations about Police Station 1 state that it operates in South Township. As a result the claim could be coded as conflict.