Viewgraph · 6 frames
What RSM ID identifies
A visual primer to the referents RSM ID is designed to identify — people, organizations and communities, places and living systems, facilities, instruments and materials, digital agents, formations and outcomes, and knowledge artifacts — and to the three vocabularies that must not be confused: teaching families, semantic classes, and registered naming kinds.
Viewgraph6 frames
Ecosystem identity
What can have an RSM identity?
Any distinguishable entity in the RSM universe: digital, physical, conceptual, organizational, ecological, social, or computational.
RSM ID Learning Center
rsmid.org
Four more families
Instruments, agents, efforts — and documents
Knowledge artifacts are one family among eight, often the evidence about the other seven.
Soil Probe 17; Harvest Lot A.
The Grower Support Agent, acting under delegation.
Water Stewardship Formation; reduced irrigation withdrawals.
A sensor dataset, a permit, a report, a fieldnote.
Proportion
A document is evidence about the world, not the world
The dataset is one referent among seven here; it describes Soil Probe 17 and North Field.
Rendering diagram…
Every edge is a hypothetical assertion made by some party, not a registered predicate.
Keep them apart
Family, semantic class, and naming kind are different things
None of the three is encoded in the RID.
Groupings this Learning Center uses to explain breadth.
How a Semantic Space describes what something is, such as rsm:Place.
The kind segment of an RRN, from a versioned registry.
Registry gap
Some referents have no registered naming kind yet
The minimum profile has twelve kinds. Community, material, and digital agent are not among them.
Also observation, formation, outcome, document, concept, space, relationship.
Such names would be rejected at authoritative registration.
An RID encodes no kind; whether a record’s kind must be registered is open.
Rule
A semantic class is not a registered kind. Show the gap; never invent the kind.
Read as text
- Ecosystem identityWhat can have an RSM identity?Any distinguishable entity in the RSM universe: digital, physical, conceptual, organizational, ecological, social, or computational.Source: Document 08 v1.1 §2.1
- Four familiesPeople, collectives, places, and built thingsEach is identifiable in its own right, independent of whoever describes it first.PeopleAnika, an independent grower — identifiable without an employer or a space.Organizations and communitiesCedar Farm Cooperative; Cedar Valley Growers.Places and living systemsNorth Field; the Cedar Creek watershed.FacilitiesThe Cooperative Grain Store.Source: Document 08 v1.1 §2.1 — Cedar Valley is fictional
- Four more familiesInstruments, agents, efforts — and documentsKnowledge artifacts are one family among eight, often the evidence about the other seven.Instruments and materialsSoil Probe 17; Harvest Lot A.Digital agentsThe Grower Support Agent, acting under delegation.Formations and outcomesWater Stewardship Formation; reduced irrigation withdrawals.Knowledge artifactsA sensor dataset, a permit, a report, a fieldnote.Source: Document 08 v1.1 §2.1 — Cedar Valley is fictional
- ProportionA document is evidence about the world, not the worldThe dataset is one referent among seven here; it describes Soil Probe 17 and North Field.Seven referents from Cedar Valley: Anika, Cedar Farm Cooperative, North Field, Cedar Creek watershed, Soil Probe 17, the Water Stewardship Formation, and a moisture dataset. Only the dataset is a document; it is about Soil Probe 17, which observes North Field.Source: Document 08 v1.1 §2.1, §2.2 — Cedar Valley is fictional; relations are hypothetical assertions
- Keep them apartFamily, semantic class, and naming kind are different thingsNone of the three is encoded in the RID.Teaching familiesGroupings this Learning Center uses to explain breadth.Semantic classesHow a Semantic Space describes what something is, such as rsm:Place.Registered naming kindsThe kind segment of an RRN, from a versioned registry.Source: Document 08 v1.1 §1.3, §2.2, §18.3
- Registry gapSome referents have no registered naming kind yetThe minimum profile has twelve kinds. Community, material, and digital agent are not among them.Registered: person, organization, place, facility, instrumentAlso observation, formation, outcome, document, concept, space, relationship.Not registered: community, material, digital agentSuch names would be rejected at authoritative registration.The RID is unaffectedAn RID encodes no kind; whether a record’s kind must be registered is open.RuleSource: Document 08 v1.1 §18.3 — mapping is an open question (SPEC-03)
Sources and provenance
Normative basis
- Document 08 v1.1 — Section 2.1Resource
- Document 08 v1.1 — Section 2.2RID — RSM Identifier
- Document 08 v1.1 — Section 1.3Scope
- Document 08 v1.1 — Section 18.3Resource-kind registry
This viewgraph is an informative explanation. Where it and the specifications differ, Documents 08 and 09 v1.1 govern.
What it contains
- Document 08 v1.1 · normative
- Grounded directly in Document 08, the controlling standard. Cited by section.
- Interpretation
- Explanation or design rationale written for this Learning Center. It does not add requirements.
- Hypothetical example
- An illustrative scenario. Its identifiers are examples or fictional; none has been issued.
Related
Pathway: Understanding Identity · For everyone · Revised 2026-10-10 · Content ID viewgraph.ecosystem-identity-map (a page identifier on this site, not an RID)