Seednote
Formation
A multi-party effort with an identity of its own
An identifiable, evolving multi-party effort, distinct from its participants, its charter, and the outcomes it pursues.
RSM ID Learning Center2 min read
A formation is a coordinated effort by several parties — people, organizations, communities — toward an outcome they could not reach alone. It is a referent in its own right: Document 08 lists an outcome formation among its examples of resources, and formation and outcome are both kinds in the minimum naming profile. What makes a formation worth identifying is that it outlives any single arrangement of it. Members join and leave, roles are reassigned, commitments are renegotiated, and the charter is amended, yet participants, funders, and assessors need one stable way to say this effort.
That clause draws the boundary. The registry keeps the formation's identity record — its RID, names, identity lifecycle, and authority. The formation's own state — enrolling, coordinating, intervening, under review, closed — is domain knowledge kept by the Semantic Space that coordinates it, and it is not one of the five identity lifecycle states.
Example
The Water Stewardship Formation, 451.SMGC2SQ5QSXKYF0C, brings together Cedar Valley Growers, Cedar Farm Cooperative, and the watershed council to reduce irrigation withdrawals from Cedar Creek. The outcome it pursues has its own RID, and the formation relates to it by a recorded relationship. When the cooperative renames itself and a new grower group joins, participation records change; the Formation's RID does not. When its work ends, the formation's domain state becomes closed, while its identity remains a permanent record that can still be cited.
A common misconception
“The formation is its charter.” A charter is a document that describes the formation at one moment, and it may be amended or replaced. Nor is the formation its coordinator or its member list: a formation whose coordinator leaves is still the same formation, and its RID never stands in for any participant's identity.
Related concepts
A formation pursues outcomes, and claims about those outcomes are assertions with evidence. The Journal The identity of a formation follows the Water Stewardship Formation from enrollment to a challenged result, and An outcome is not a claim separates what was pursued from what was asserted.
In the specification
Resources include outcome formations: Document 08 §2.1. Formation state outside the identity record: §5.3.1. Registered kinds: §18.3.