Claims With Multiple Citations

Occassionally, the information in one citation needs additional evidencing from other citations, so multiple citations are brought together to evidence a claim. These additional citations add context or additional information to help evidence the claim. Whenever multiple citations are used there must be a explanatory note in the public_notes:meta field detailing what the additional citations help evidence. This process is another type of cross refencing which information from other citations can be brought to bare on any one claim (see the section Cross-Referencing Claims for more details).

Citations with both Accepted and Conflicted Information

The most common use for combining citations is for instances where a citation has both accepted and conflict information for a single claim.

Example

One citation evidences a Posting as of 2020-06-07 for John Smith to the 15 Battalion as commander (posting:roles:assertion) with the posting:ranks:assertion of Major General. Other citations before and after 2020-06-07 evidence that John Smith had the rank of Colonel. Other citations also estalish that commanders of other battalions have the rank of Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel. The full Posting claim for John Smith with the rank of Major General should be entered as a conflict claim. However, the citation does contain information that matches other citations, and this should be captured as well. An additional entry is made for a Posting for John Smith as commander of 15 Battalion as of 2020-06-07. Notably this second entry does not contain the conflict information of the rank of Major General. The additional contextual citations for John Smith as commander of 15 Battalion with rank of Colonel, along with the other citations for other battalion commanders have the rank of Colonel or Lieutenant Colonel should be added to this entry with an explanatory public_notes:meta.

“Unknown” Units

Unknown units are created when citations establish the hierarchy for units, but do not evidence the specific Relation for one or more units. See the Unknown and Unnamed units section for a fuller discussion of this issue.

Example

Citations establish that light infantry divisions of Myanmar are made up of three tactical operations commands, each of which in turn command battalions. For the 99 Light Infantry Division citations establish there are the following tactical operations commands under it: 991 Tactical Operations Command, 992 Tactical Operations Command, and the 993 Tactical Operations Command. Thus all tactical operations commands exist in the Monitor’s dataset. However, citations often reference battalions as being a part of the 99 Light Infantry Division, without specifying which tactical operations command the particular battalion is under. Because of this, even though all possible tactical operations commands are known and represented in the data, the Monitor has created an “Unknown” unit, the Unknown Tactical Operations Command (99 Light Infantry Division). Any citation that states a battalion is part of the 99 Light Infantry Division, without referencing a tactical operations command, is used to evidence a Relation between the battalion and the Unknown Tactical Operations Command (99 Light Infantry Division). Of course, the supporting citations that establish battalions are under tactical operations command would also be entered in the citation:refs:claim for the claim, and an explanatory note would be entered in public_notes:meta.

Clarifying Positionings

In many countries a city, small administrative division, and sub national division may all share similar names and be referenced with the same name. When it is unclear which location is being referenced the largest possible area should be used. Sometimes, however, citations can bring additional context to the Positioning claim to help evidence that a smaller division, or even specific city is the appropriate claim.

Example

Bawlakhe in Myanmar is the name of a city, a township (a small administrative division) and a district (a larger administrative division that contains one or more townships). If a citation states that a Unit is based in Bawlakhe it should be coded as Bawlakhe District as that is the largest area. However, if other citations evidence the same unit is based in the city of Bawlakhe then these could be added as contextual citations and the claim could be coded as * also * evidencing a Positioning for the unit in the city of Bawlakhe.

Assuming Classifications of Positionings of Subordinate Units

The classifcations and positionings of subordinate units should be assumed by their parent units, (units that have a Relation to the subordinate unit). By its very nature this approach creates multiple citations for the claim. See the Assumption of Poistioning and Classifications By Parent Units section for a fuller discussion of this issue.