How to deal with military expeditions where specimens were also collected.

[SiobhanLeachman]

This question has been frequently discussed by the expedition working group and I'm aware that the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin as well as other institutions have been undertaking work which has raised this issue.

[SiobhanLeachman]

I understand how uncomfortable it can be to also call a military expedition a research expedition. In my view I would consider whether there is a secondary source that can support that statement ie "instance of" "research expedition". Often what to call these types of expeditions can come down to a value judgement and of course in such cases it's important to think about how others might view the statements you are making on the item. Having a source you can cite to support statements helps in these cases. In my view if the military expedition has a secondary purpose of collecting specimens, and this can be supported by a publication, I would have no issue with making an "instance of" "research expedition" statement. However if the military expedition had participants who only collected just because they could, I wouldn't make that extra "instance of '' statement.

As regards making "collection items at" statements on a purely military expedition items, I don't know whether this is appropriate. I can see an argument in favour of making "collection items at" statements on a purely military expedition item - such as folk wanting to know where all collected or looted items obtained during the military expedition might currently be held.

I do think there is a difference between people collecting specimens while they just happened to be on a military expedition and a military expedition that had a secondary purpose of collecting specimens - for example an expedition that deliberately took botanists or naturalists who were employed either by the military powers or with their permission to do this work as apposed to a soldier who was also interested in botany and botanised in his/her leisure time. I haven't see anyone model this but I think it would be useful if our documentation provided guidance on these types of examples.

So, if we are talking about a purely military expedition where a participant soldier just happened to collect a specimen that ended up to be a type specimen of a species, I wouldn't make any statements on the military expedition item. I would add information to the participant soldiers item including a statement that he/she was a collector and also a "participant in" statement linking the soldier to the military campaign.

I might also add a statement on the species item to say "significant event" "the particularly military expedition associated with the collecting event" if that is the event when the type specimen was collected. I would qualify that statement with the date the type specimen was collected and use the species first description paper and/or the holotype specimen link as the supporting reference (assuming these sources state the specimen was collected during the military expedition).

I would add the article about the collected items or described species to the expedition item as a "described by source" only if it actually discusses the military expedition. Otherwise I would do as we've already discussed and add the original description publication to the species taxon item as a supporting reference for the species statement. If there is another type of publication discussing the military expedition and the species that publication could be added to the species taxon item as a "described by source" publication. If the publication discussed the military expedition or uses it as a key word I would add also add a "main subject" statement to the publication item linking it to the military campaign.

[dagendresen]

If research material is collected during a military expedition (or other expedition with a main objective different from research), would we perhaps recommend as a general practice to create a separate Wikidata entry for the research expedition and declare it to be "Part Of" the larger expedition?