{ "model": { "rank": 2793, "code": "thing-practice", "model_id": "vr.tr.practice", "name": "practice", "purpose": "a customary way of operation or behavior", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Activities and processes", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "ACT", "domain": "ACT.ACT", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/practice/", "tier": 2, "score": 97, "payload": { "layer": "wordnet", "aliases": [ "ablution", "pattern", "biologism", "cooperation", "featherbedding", "formalism", "one-upmanship", "pluralism", "symbolism", "symbolization", "symbolisation", "modernism", "occult", "occult arts", "ornamentalism", "cannibalism", "anthropophagy", "careerism", "custom", "usage", "usance", "consuetude", "couvade", "habit", "use", "hijab", "ritual", "second nature", "habitude", "fashion", "lobbyism", "slavery", "slaveholding", "peonage", "line of least resistance", "path of least resistance", "unwritten law", "lynch law", "mistreatment", "nonconformism" ], "aliasCount": 144, "merged": 97, "knownIn": 0, "facets": { "substance": "activity", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert", "mobility": "not-applicable", "scale": "not-applicable", "affordances": [ "observable" ] }, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "noun.act", "senseRank": 0, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "oewn:2024", "synset": "oewn-00411260-n", "ili": "i37557", "license": "CC BY 4.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-07T11:49:18Z", "providers": [ "Codex", "Grok" ], "missingProviders": [], "pass": 2, "cost": { "grok": { "usd": 0.03941876, "turns": 2, "seconds": 127.2, "error": null }, "codex": { "seconds": 81.6, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.3\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a07bb1-9b40-7873-9b82-5f3ec16df552\n--------\nuser\nYou are drafting a Vercy meta-model for one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: practice\nRegistry id: vr.tr.practice\nPlane / domain: ACT / ACT.ACT\nRegistry definition: a customary way of operation or behavior\nNames folded into th" } } }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-PRACTICE", "registryId": "vr.tr.practice", "name": "practice", "version": "0.1.0-research.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "ACT.ACT" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/practice/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.practice", "name": "practice", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise a customary way of acting, assess how it is enacted and sustained, and judge whether to support, adapt, interrupt or retire it.", "definition": "A practice is a recurrent, socially recognizable way of carrying out an activity, reproduced through shared know-how, materials, and understandings rather than solely through an explicit rule.", "scope_statement": "This model owns practice as a recognisable customary pattern of operation or behavior maintained through enactment by an individual or group in particular circumstances, including its variations, transmission and conditions for change.", "in_scope": [ "The recurring way of acting and the situations in which it is customary", "Practitioners, participation roles and expectations about competent enactment", "Actual enactments, tolerated variations and departures from the customary pattern", "How the practice is learned, reinforced and sustained", "Evidence of effects, constraints and changes in continued use" ], "out_of_scope": [ "A particular action or event considered independently of the customary pattern", "A prescribed procedure or policy considered independently of what people actually do", "A project or plan organised around a bounded future result", "An individual's capability or automatic habit considered independently of the customary way of acting", "The organisation, community or tools that participate in or support the practice" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "There is evidence that the way of acting is customary for identified practitioners in identified circumstances; a single occurrence alone does not establish a practice.", "The pattern describes enacted behavior; a documented instruction with no evidence of use is a procedure or proposal, not an established practice.", "Different enactments can count as the same practice despite variation; its identity does not depend on replaying one event exactly.", "The practice is a way of operating or behaving, rather than merely an intended outcome or a capacity to act.", "Automaticity, collective participation and deliberate rehearsal are possible features, but none should be assumed from the word practice alone." ], "characteristics": [ { "name": "Practitioner scope", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Individuals or groups for whom the way of acting is customary", "why_it_matters": "Prevents a local practice from being attributed to everyone in an organisation or domain." }, { "name": "Occasion of enactment", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Recorded triggers, situations or recurring occasions", "why_it_matters": "Identifies when the practice would normally be expected to occur." }, { "name": "Observed uptake", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Enactments divided by eligible occasions within a stated practitioner scope and observation period; unknown when occasions cannot be counted", "why_it_matters": "Distinguishes customary use from isolated use without imposing a universal frequency threshold." }, { "name": "Expectation of adherence", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Optional, preferred, socially expected, formally required, contested or unknown; attributed to a source", "why_it_matters": "Separates common behavior from behavior people are expected or required to follow." }, { "name": "Enactment mode", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Individual, coordinated collective, independently shared or mixed", "why_it_matters": "Shows whether changing one practitioner's behavior can change the practice or requires coordination." }, { "name": "Accepted variation", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Recorded variants and conditions under which each is accepted by identified practitioners", "why_it_matters": "Helps distinguish legitimate adaptation from departure or the emergence of another practice." }, { "name": "Current use state", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "Emerging, established, intermittent, suspended, discontinued, disputed or unknown; scoped and dated", "why_it_matters": "Supports decisions about whether the practice can still be relied upon." }, { "name": "Supporting dependencies", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Required competencies, tools, access, resources and coordinating practices", "why_it_matters": "Identifies what must be available for enactment and what could interrupt it." }, { "name": "Observed effects", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Links to observed outcomes, affected parties and supporting evidence, with attribution uncertainty", "why_it_matters": "Supports assessment without treating customary use as proof of effectiveness or legitimacy." } ], "affordances": [ "Recognise candidate enactments and assess whether they belong to the same practice", "Compare observed behavior with practitioners' accounts and formal instructions", "Identify missing conditions for competent participation or continued enactment", "Assess the effects and acceptability of continuing the practice for affected parties", "Propose a bounded adaptation or trial within the relevant authority and participation constraints", "Track whether a practice persists, changes, is suspended or is replaced" ] }, "sources": [ { "id": "wiki-practice-theory", "title": "Practice theory", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Practice_theory", "what_it_supports": "Treats practices as what people do in everyday life, organized by habitus and taken-for-granted doxa rather than by conscious rule-following.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "weenink-spaargaren-2019", "title": "Practice Theories", "url": "https://research.wur.nl/en/publications/practice-theories/", "what_it_supports": "Defines social practices as routinized behavior integrating bodily know-how, objects, technology, understandings, and emotions.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "mcmillan-constitution", "title": "The Constitution of Social Practices (excerpt)", "url": "https://www.cips-cepi.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/McMillan-Constitution-of-Social-Practices-Excerpt.pdf", "what_it_supports": "Describes practice as customary or competent activity based on skills acquired through experience, training, and routine performance, embodied as tacit know-how.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "cockerham-context", "title": "Theorizing Social Context: Rethinking Behavioral Theory", "url": "https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3548316/", "what_it_supports": "Uses Bourdieu to treat social practice as behavior that both arises from and remakes its social context, not as isolated individual acts.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "iso-9000-via-edumax", "title": "Key Differences Between Processes, Projects, and Procedures", "url": "https://www.edumax.pro/blog/understanding-the-differences-processes-projects-and-procedures", "what_it_supports": "Quotes ISO 9000:2015 definitions of process and procedure, which are the documented neighbours against which 'practice' is routinely distinguished in organizations.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "bmc-practice-vs-process", "title": "Practice vs Process: What's The Difference?", "url": "https://blogs.bmc.com/practice-vs-process/", "what_it_supports": "Enterprise-IT distinction: a process is a bounded sequence to an end; a practice is a more holistic, ongoing, improvable way of working (hence 'best practice', not 'best process').", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "usm-routines", "title": "Routines vs process, procedure, work instruction, practice and value stream", "url": "https://usm-portal.com/routines-vs-process-procedure-work-instruction-practice/?lang=en", "what_it_supports": "Service-management usage in which practices are generalized work instructions derived from process logic.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "cvo-standards", "title": "Standards and the Role of the Regulator", "url": "https://www.cvo.org/getmedia/9f5bb33b-09d3-4b08-a17e-823825a9d2a0/Standards-and-the-Role-of-the-Regulator.pdf", "what_it_supports": "Separates standard of practice (profession's essential expectations) from standard of care and from clinical guidelines in professional regulation.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "sds-safe-work-ca", "title": "Safe Work Practices in Canada: What Employers Must Know", "url": "https://sdsmanager.com/ca/sds-management-articles/safe-work-practices/", "what_it_supports": "Documents the Canadian OHS distinction between generic safe work practices and task-specific safe job procedures, under fourteen jurisdictions rather than one national law.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "epil-best-practices", "title": "Best Practices", "url": "https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1725", "what_it_supports": "Treats 'best practices' in public international law as a non-binding soft-law method of setting exemplary models through horizontal cooperation.", "url_status": "unverified" }, { "id": "habit-custom-practice", "title": "Habit, Custom, Practice, Routine", "url": "https://myenglishteacher.co.uk/2025/10/09/habit-custom-practice-routine/", "what_it_supports": "Lexical distinctions used in English: habit is personal and automatic; custom is traditional and communal; practice is an accepted method of a profession or group.", "url_status": "live" } ], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "customary-pattern", "name": "Customary pattern", "description": "What practitioners customarily do and what makes different enactments instances of the same practice.", "rationale": "An agent must identify a recurring way of acting without mistaking a label, isolated event or written prescription for an established practice.", "layers": [ { "id": "pattern-recognition", "name": "Pattern recognition", "description": "The observable behavior and situated evidence that establish customary use.", "findings": [ { "id": "customary-way-of-acting", "name": "Customary way of acting", "description": "Record the pattern of behavior and the evidence supporting its status as customary for particular practitioners.", "questions": [ { "text": "What do practitioners characteristically do, and in which situations?", "kind": "definition", "id": "customary-way-of-acting-q01" }, { "text": "Which observations or practitioner accounts establish customary use, for whom and over what period?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "customary-way-of-acting-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "identity-and-variation", "name": "Identity and variation", "description": "The features that hold the practice together across differing enactments.", "findings": [ { "id": "same-practice-test", "name": "Same-practice test", "description": "Record which features define the practice and which may vary without changing its identity.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which changes in sequence, participants, tools or manner still count as this practice, and according to whom?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "same-practice-test-q01" }, { "text": "What would distinguish a departure from this practice from an instance of a different practice?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "same-practice-test-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "situated-enactment", "name": "Situated enactment", "description": "When the practice occurs and what makes its enactment possible.", "rationale": "A customary pattern can be misjudged if eligible occasions, resource conditions or coordination requirements are ignored.", "layers": [ { "id": "occasions-and-uptake", "name": "Occasions and uptake", "description": "The situations that invite enactment and the extent to which practitioners actually enact it.", "findings": [ { "id": "use-on-eligible-occasions", "name": "Use on eligible occasions", "description": "Record observed use relative to relevant opportunities, including omissions and their explanations.", "questions": [ { "text": "What makes an occasion eligible for this practice, and what circumstances exclude it?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "use-on-eligible-occasions-q01" }, { "text": "Across a stated period and practitioner scope, how often was the practice enacted when an eligible occasion occurred?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "use-on-eligible-occasions-q02" }, { "text": "Which missed enactments reflect exceptions, inability to act or declining use?", "kind": "definition", "id": "use-on-eligible-occasions-q03" } ] } ] }, { "id": "enactment-dependencies", "name": "Enactment dependencies", "description": "The competencies, materials and coordination needed to carry out the practice.", "findings": [ { "id": "conditions-for-performing", "name": "Conditions for performing", "description": "Record the conditions that enable enactment and the consequences when those conditions are absent.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which skills, tools, access rights, resources or preceding activities are needed to enact this practice?", "kind": "definition", "id": "conditions-for-performing-q01" }, { "text": "When a needed condition is missing, which substitutions, postponements or interruptions are acceptable?", "kind": "action", "id": "conditions-for-performing-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "participation-and-transmission", "name": "Participation and transmission", "description": "Who carries the practice and how people learn to enact and sustain it.", "rationale": "Continued enactment depends on practitioners and learning arrangements, which may be tacit and absent from formal documentation.", "layers": [ { "id": "practitioner-roles", "name": "Practitioner roles", "description": "Participation, coordination and recognition of competent enactment.", "findings": [ { "id": "participation-and-competence", "name": "Participation and competence", "description": "Record who performs the practice, how participation is arranged and how competence is recognised.", "questions": [ { "text": "Who enacts the practice, and which parts require coordination with other participants?", "kind": "definition", "id": "participation-and-competence-q01" }, { "text": "How do practitioners recognise competent enactment, and whose judgment is accepted or disputed?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "participation-and-competence-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "learning-and-continuity", "name": "Learning and continuity", "description": "The means by which the practice is acquired, reinforced and retained.", "findings": [ { "id": "transmission-pathways", "name": "Transmission pathways", "description": "Record how practitioners learn the practice and which arrangements sustain it as people and circumstances change.", "questions": [ { "text": "How is the practice learned through instruction, observation, participation, repetition or other means?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "transmission-pathways-q01" }, { "text": "What would enable a new practitioner to participate competently, especially where essential knowledge is tacit?", "kind": "action", "id": "transmission-pathways-q02" }, { "text": "Which departures of experienced practitioners or losses of shared resources would threaten continuity?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "transmission-pathways-q03" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "expectations-and-effects", "name": "Expectations and effects", "description": "Why the practice is followed, what adherence means and what its enactment appears to produce.", "rationale": "An agent must distinguish familiarity, obligation and demonstrated benefit before recommending continuation or intervention.", "layers": [ { "id": "custom-and-prescription", "name": "Custom and prescription", "description": "The relationship between actual conduct and expectations about how people should act.", "findings": [ { "id": "adherence-expectations", "name": "Adherence expectations", "description": "Record whether adherence is optional, expected or required, and how these expectations relate to observed enactment.", "questions": [ { "text": "Who expects this practice to be followed, and what supports that expectation?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "adherence-expectations-q01" }, { "text": "Where does customary enactment differ from formal instructions or stated practitioner expectations?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "adherence-expectations-q02" }, { "text": "What responses to departure are permitted, and who may authorise an exception?", "kind": "action", "id": "adherence-expectations-q03" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequences-of-enactment", "name": "Consequences of enactment", "description": "Reported purposes and observed effects, including effects on people other than practitioners.", "findings": [ { "id": "benefits-costs-and-harms", "name": "Benefits, costs and harms", "description": "Record claimed purposes separately from evidence of outcomes and uncertainty about their causes.", "questions": [ { "text": "What reasons do practitioners give for following the practice, including when no explicit purpose is stated?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "benefits-costs-and-harms-q01" }, { "text": "What benefits, costs or harms have been observed, for whom, and against what comparison?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "benefits-costs-and-harms-q02" }, { "text": "What evidence supports attributing those effects to the practice rather than to surrounding conditions?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "benefits-costs-and-harms-q03" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "persistence-and-change", "name": "Persistence and change", "description": "The practice's current standing and the conditions for adapting or ending its use.", "rationale": "A practice may persist informally, change unevenly or stop without formal retirement; an agent needs evidence of actual transition.", "layers": [ { "id": "current-standing", "name": "Current standing", "description": "Whether the practice remains customary within its stated scope.", "findings": [ { "id": "continuation-or-disuse", "name": "Continuation or disuse", "description": "Record current use and distinguish inactivity caused by absent occasions from suspension or discontinuation.", "questions": [ { "text": "What recent evidence indicates that this practice is emerging, established, intermittent, suspended or discontinued?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "continuation-or-disuse-q01" }, { "text": "Does a gap in enactment indicate disuse, or have no eligible occasions occurred?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "continuation-or-disuse-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "deliberate-adaptation", "name": "Deliberate adaptation", "description": "How changes can be attempted, assessed and incorporated into customary behavior.", "findings": [ { "id": "change-and-adoption", "name": "Change and adoption", "description": "Record proposed changes, authority to act, participation needs and evidence that a change has entered actual use.", "questions": [ { "text": "Who can change their own enactment, and which changes require agreement or authorisation from others?", "kind": "action", "id": "change-and-adoption-q01" }, { "text": "What bounded trial and stopping conditions would allow an adaptation to be assessed?", "kind": "action", "id": "change-and-adoption-q02" }, { "text": "What observations would show that the revised way has become customary or that the previous way has ceased?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "change-and-adoption-q03" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-external-alignment", "name": "Evidence and external alignment", "description": "What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.", "rationale": "A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.", "layers": [ { "id": "reported-evidence", "name": "Reported evidence", "description": "Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds", "name": "Kinds and varieties", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "social practice (everyday routinized activity as treated in practice theory)", "professional practice (the licensed or occupational way of doing a trade)", "best practice (a method an industry treats as most effective)", "standard of practice (the benchmark of expected professional conduct)", "safe work practice (generic do's and don'ts for a class of hazardous tasks)", "clinical practice (patterns of care delivery in medicine and allied health)", "organizational or management practice (named capability areas such as ITIL practices or GMP)", "customary or cultural practice (community-held ways of greeting, ritual, and etiquette)" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds-q01", "text": "Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-identifiers", "name": "Identifiers and schemes", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "scheme": "WordNet", "value_or_pattern": "practice.n.01 - 'a customary way of operation or behavior'", "note": "The Princeton WordNet sense this registry entry is scoped to; no ISO or taxonomic code names the concept itself." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-identifiers-q01", "text": "Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation", "name": "Standards and regulation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "ISO 9000:2015 and ISO 9001:2015 (International Organization for Standardization) - quality-management vocabulary that defines process and procedure, the documented forms organizations often label as practices.", "Good Manufacturing Practice / current GMP (World Health Organization; U.S. Food and Drug Administration; European Medicines Agency) - obligatory production practices in medicines and related goods.", "ITIL 4 practice framework (Axelos) - named service-management practices used as the operating vocabulary of many IT organizations.", "Professional practice statutes and college standards (e.g. California Business and Professions Code §2725 and 16 CCR §§1379/1474 for nursing; provincial veterinary colleges) - set and enforce a profession's standard of practice.", "Occupational health and safety statutes requiring safe work practices (Canada: one federal and thirteen provincial/territorial OHS jurisdictions; analogous duties in other national OHS regimes).", "Common-law standard of care in professional negligence (courts) - what a reasonably prudent practitioner of similar training would have done in like circumstances.", "Best-practice regimes as soft law (international organizations and industry bodies) - exemplary models adopted voluntarily, without the force of a treaty or statute." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation-q01", "text": "Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-real-world-use", "name": "Real-world use", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "A surgical team treating preoperative hand hygiene as accepted professional practice.", "An IT service desk running an ITIL incident-management practice rather than a one-off ticket process.", "A construction employer posting safe work practices for ladder use, distinct from a lockout/tagout job procedure.", "A veterinarian or pharmacist judged by a regulator against the profession's published and unpublished standard of practice.", "Diplomats performing summitry through unarticulated scripts (bureaucrat, mediator, hero) rather than a written procedure.", "A pharmaceutical plant audited for conformity with GMP.", "Communities reproducing greeting practices (handshake, bow, cheek kiss) as customary public behavior." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-real-world-use-q01", "text": "Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-measurements", "name": "Typical measurements", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "quantity": "adoption or prevalence in a defined population of practitioners or organizations", "typical_range": "0-100", "unit": "percent" }, { "quantity": "observed compliance with a named practice", "typical_range": "0-100 of sampled instances", "unit": "percent" }, { "quantity": "performance frequency", "typical_range": "several times per hour (e.g. hand hygiene) to yearly (e.g. an audit practice)", "unit": "events per unit time" }, { "quantity": "time to competent independent performance", "typical_range": "days to several years, depending on the practice", "unit": "time" } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-measurements-q01", "text": "Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards", "name": "Failure modes and hazards", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Malpractice or unprofessional practice: enacted doing falls below the standard of practice or standard of care.", "Practice drift and workarounds that silently bypass written controls.", "Cargo-cult copying of a 'best practice' whose form does not fit the local materials, skills, or incentives.", "Tacit practice becoming invisible, unteachable, and lost when experienced people leave.", "Over-codification that crowds out situated judgment the practice actually requires.", "Informal customary practice that conflicts with statute or safety rules.", "Lock-in of an obsolete practice that continues because it is second nature." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01", "text": "Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-regional-variation", "name": "Regional variation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "In US and UK professional English, 'a practice' often names a firm's business (a medical or legal practice); social theory uses 'practice' for the activity itself.", "British spelling splits noun practice from verb practise; American English uses practice for both.", "Canadian OHS writing distinguishes generic 'safe work practices' from task-specific 'safe job procedures'; other jurisdictions collapse both under 'procedures' or 'SWPs'.", "Greeting and etiquette practices differ sharply by culture (handshake, bow, cheek kiss) while remaining the same kind of thing.", "Who may lawfully 'practice' a profession is set by jurisdiction-specific practice acts and colleges, not by a global code.", "In international law, 'best practices' are typically voluntary soft law; some domestic regulators treat published professional practices as near-mandatory." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-regional-variation-q01", "text": "Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-neighbours", "name": "Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "name": "habit", "difference": "A habit is an individual's often automatic repetition; a practice is socially shared and accountable, even when it feels like second nature." }, { "name": "custom", "difference": "A custom is a traditional, culture-bearing way of doing; a practice need not be traditional and is routinely occupational or organizational." }, { "name": "procedure", "difference": "ISO 9000:2015 defines a procedure as a specified way to carry out an activity or process; a practice can exist as tacit competent doing without a written specification." }, { "name": "process", "difference": "ISO 9000:2015 defines a process as interrelated activities that convert inputs into an intended result and that end when that result is delivered; a practice is the ongoing, improvable way of working around that doing." }, { "name": "policy", "difference": "A policy states rules or direction; a practice is the enacted pattern, which may conform to or diverge from the policy." }, { "name": "routine", "difference": "A routine is a relatively fixed sequence of actions; a practice can include variation, judgment, and situated repair." }, { "name": "skill", "difference": "A skill is an individual's capability; a practice is the organized social activity in which that capability is exercised with others, tools, and settings." }, { "name": "norm", "difference": "A norm is a rule of what ought to be done; a practice is what is actually done, which may instantiate, stretch, or violate the norm." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-neighbours-q01", "text": "Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of practice this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "What evidence is sufficient to call a way of acting customary when eligible occasions are rare or historical observation is limited?", "Where should the registry draw the boundaries among practice, habit, routine, custom and procedure, especially for an individual's customary behavior?", "Does this entry include deliberate rehearsal as a distinct sense of practice, or only when rehearsal itself forms a customary way of acting?", "How should conflicting practitioner judgments about the identity, competence criteria or accepted variants of a practice be represented?", "When a practice changes unevenly across groups, what criteria distinguish local variants, successor practices and separate registered things?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 11, "findings": 18, "questions": 33 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched.", "facetsInferred": false, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a practice, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "a customary way of operation or behavior", "characteristics": { "substance": "activity", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: ablution, pattern, biologism, cooperation, featherbedding, formalism, one-upmanship, pluralism, symbolism, symbolization, symbolisation, modernism.", "97 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a practice, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "something that happens over time", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "ablution", "pattern", "biologism", "cooperation", "featherbedding", "formalism", "one-upmanship", "pluralism", "symbolism", "symbolization", "symbolisation", "modernism" ] } ], "standing": "97 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one practice from another, and a practice from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a practice sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a practice from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a practice passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a practice between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a practice, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a practice is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "process-and-outcome", "name": "Process, inputs and outcome", "description": "How a practice proceeds, what it needs and what it leaves behind.", "rationale": "An activity is known by its steps and its results, and both have to be recordable while it is still running.", "layers": [ { "id": "steps-and-sequence", "name": "Steps and sequence", "description": "The steps of a practice, their order and what may run in parallel.", "findings": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions", "name": "Steps, preconditions and completion", "description": "What has to be true before each step of a practice and what marks it done.", "questions": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a step of a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a step of a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a step of a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-results", "name": "Inputs, resources and results", "description": "What a practice consumes and what it produces.", "findings": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs", "name": "Inputs, outputs and side effects", "description": "The resources a practice takes and the results it leaves, wanted or not.", "questions": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the inputs and results of a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the inputs and results of a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the inputs and results of a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What practice is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of practice are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is practice operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of practice and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of practice?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as practice?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a practice came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a practice and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a practice is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a practice, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a practice, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a practice is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }