How Dates Work

Dates are a central focus of the Security Force Monitor’s data and methodology. All claims in the Security Force Monitor dataset are time-bound.

We structure all dates into ranges with a first and last date. The first date in the range can be the “start” and the last date can be the “end” of the range. Even a single day, such as 5 May 2025 would be entered with a first date of 2025-05-05 and a last date of 2025-05-05. All dates should be entered in the YYYY-MM-DD format.

Precise ranges

For a precise range all of the details of the claim are true for all dates in the range. A single day is a precise range with the first and last dates having the same date entered as a value in both first_precise:range and last_precise:range fields.

Example

A citation states “John Smith was appointed commander of the 1 Brigade on 2014-08-01.” To structure this sentence into data we’d pull out multiple claims:

unit

1 Brigade (entry for name:annotation and unit:names:assertion) would have a first_precise:range of 2014-08-01 and last_precise:range of 2014-08-01, with the starting:range of N and ending:range of N.

person

John Smith (entry for name:annotation and person:names:assertion) would have a first_precise:range of 2014-08-01 and last_precise:range of 2014-08-01, with the starting:range of N and ending:range of N.

posting

John Smith as part of 1 Brigade has posting:roles:assertion of Commander would have a first_precise:range of 2014-08-01 and last_precise:range of 2014-08-01, with the starting:range of Y and ending:range of N.

In the example above the citation clearly states that the Posting starts on a specific date of 2014-08-01. However, it does not indicate that the Person was born on that day or that the Unit was created on that day. Thus, the starting:range for the Person and Unit is N.

The date of publication of the citation is always an important consideration when establishing date ranges for claims.

Example

A citation published on 2023-11-05 states “Xavier Johnson, commander of the 9 Battalion, discussed recent operations with reporters today. Since Johnson became commander on November 1st there have been a steady tempo of operations throughout Southern District.” This citation would evidence the following claims:

unit

9 Battalion (entry for name:annotation and unit:names:assertion) would have a first_precise:range of 2023-11-01 and last_precise:range of 2023-11-05, with the starting:range of N and ending:range of N.

positioning

9 Battalion in Southern District with positioning:types:assertion of aoo would have a first_precise:range of 2023-11-01 and last_precise:range of 2023-11-05, with the starting:range of N and ending:range of N.

person

Xavier Johnson (entry for name:annotation and person:names:assertion) would have a first_precise:range of 2023-11-01 and last_precise:range of 2023-11-05, with the starting:range of N and ending:range of N.

posting

Xavier Johnson as part of 9 Battalion with posting:roles:assertion of Commander would have a first_precise:range of 2023-11-011 and last_precise:range of 2023-11-05, with the starting:range of Y and ending:range of N.

In the example above the last_precise:range is established based on the date of publication of the citation, whereas the first_precise:range is explictly stated in the text of the citation.

Imprecise ranges

For an imprecise range the details of the claim were true for at least one day in the range. Imprecise ranges give the ability to accurately capture ambiguity with dates in the data.

Example

A citation published on 2024-03-24 states “The 15 Regiment quickly responded to the attack on February 15th, conducting operations in several nearby areas, including Western, Upper, Lower and Central-South Governorates.” The precise dates when the regiment was conducting these operations in any of the governorates is not clearly stated, however, we can establish an imprecise range for all of these positionings. For all of these positionings the first_imprecise:range would be 2024-02-15 and last_imprecise:range would be 2024-03-24 (the date of publication of the citation).

The above example illustrates an important aspect of coding dates as ranges as opposed to collapsing dates into a singular value with “fuzzy dates” such as February 2024. Fuzzy dates create major problems for these types of imprecise claims by “stretching” the time range of the data beyond what the underlying citation actually is claiming. Using a “fuzzy date” of February 2024 would mean the regiment could have been conducting operations in the four governorates before the attack on February 15th - something the citation explicitly does not evidence. Similarly, a “fuzzy-date” approach would introduce errors for the last date which using “fuzzy-dates” could be entered as March 2024. Taking that approach stretches the claim beyond what the citation evidences as it projects into the future, after the citation was published. To avoid either scenario Security Force Monitor enters dates as a range with full YYYY-MM-DD values.

Often citations will have claims which effectively translate to “at some point in time before this citation was published.”

Example

A citation states that John Smith was appointed commander of the 1 Brigade on 2014-08-01. The citation also states that “John Smith previously commanded the 8 Battalion.”

The scope of “previously” may appear unclear, but with imprecise ranges we can faithfully capture the time-bound claim being made. The value of since_beginning_of_time may be entered in the first_imprecise:range field to capture the scale of “previously” or similar statements from citations which, put another way, mean “at some point in time before the date of publication this claim was true.” In the case of the example above, the Posting of John Smith to the 8 Battalion would have a first_imprecise:range of since_beginning_of_time and a last_imprecise:range of 2014-08-01.

Connecting Precise and Imprecise ranges

Often citations have a combination of precise and imprecise time-bound claims which must be carefully identified to properly enter into the dataset. When a claim has both a precise and imprecise range these must be entered so that there is a seamless date range that connects both ranges.

Example

A citation published on 2005-06-03 states: “Steven Wendell met with local officials at the 165 Battalion’s headquarters today. Wendell, who was appointed as battalion commander last month, addressed concerns about security for the coming election season.”

unit

165 Battalion (entry for name:annotation and unit:names:assertion) would have a first_precise:range of 2005-06-01 and last_precise:range of 2005-06-03, as well as a first_imprecise:range of 2005-05-01 and last_imprecise:range of 2005-05-31. The starting:range and ending:range would both have an entry of N.

person

Xavier Johnson (entry for name:annotation and person:names:assertion) would have a first_precise:range of 2005-06-01 and last_precise:range of 2005-06-03, as well as a first_imprecise:range of 2005-05-01 and last_imprecise:range of 2005-05-31. The starting:range and ending:range would both have an entry of N.

posting

Xavier Johnson as part of 9 Battalion with posting:roles:assertion of Commander would have a first_precise:range of 2005-06-01 and last_precise:range of 2005-06-03, as well as a first_imprecise:range of 2005-05-01 and last_imprecise:range of 2005-05-31. The starting:range would have a value of Y and ending:range a value of N.

Note

Our article Establishing Contiguous or Non-Contiguous Claims provides extended guidance to help researchers decisions about whether a timeline is continuous or not.