{ "model": { "rank": 4613, "code": "thing-q30314010", "model_id": "vr.tr.social-distancing", "name": "social distancing", "purpose": "Let an agent explain social distancing measures and their rationale from public health sources, relay evidence on effectiveness and costs with attribution, describe historical use, and present policy debates neutrally.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Activities and processes", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "ACT", "domain": "ACT.ACT", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q30314010/", "tier": 2, "score": 74, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "lockdown", "closing of schools and educational institutions", "COVID-19 pandemic lockdown", "protective sequestration", "workplace closures", "avoiding crowding", "closing of non-essential businesses", "social distancing measures related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" ], "aliasCount": 8, "merged": 8, "knownIn": 74, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q30314010", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q30314010", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-13T02:38:35Z", "providers": [ "Claude" ], "breadth": "written by Claude from model knowledge without web access - no source was read, every claim is a lead to verify", "pass": 2, "wave": 3, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q30314010", "registryId": "vr.tr.social-distancing", "name": "social distancing", "version": "0.2.0-wave.3", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "ACT.ACT" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q30314010/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.social-distancing", "name": "social distancing", "purpose": "Let an agent explain social distancing measures and their rationale from public health sources, relay evidence on effectiveness and costs with attribution, describe historical use, and present policy debates neutrally.", "definition": "A set of non-pharmaceutical public health measures that reduce close contact between people to slow the spread of infectious disease, including keeping physical distance, avoiding crowds, closing schools, workplaces and venues, limiting gatherings, protective sequestration of vulnerable groups and, at the extreme, lockdowns and stay-at-home orders as applied widely during the COVID-19 pandemic; the measures are weighed against social, educational and economic costs and their effectiveness is studied and debated.", "what_it_is_for": "Slowing transmission of infectious disease.", "affordances": [ "explain measures and rationale", "relay evidence with attribution", "describe historical use", "present debates neutrally" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Non-pharmaceutical", "Population-level", "Graduated intensity", "Contested trade-offs" ], "appearance": "Not a visible object; spaced queues, closed venues, empty streets during lockdowns.", "visual_identification": [ "Reducing contact to slow disease spread", "Physical distancing, avoiding crowds, closures, protective sequestration, lockdowns", "Quarantine isolates exposed people; isolation separates the sick; masks are a separate measure" ], "physical_properties": [ { "quantity": "common distancing guidance", "typical_range": "1-2", "unit": "metres", "note": "varied by country during COVID-19" } ], "families_and_kinds": [ "physical distancing and avoiding crowding", "closures of schools, workplaces and venues", "limits on gatherings and events", "protective sequestration of vulnerable groups", "lockdowns and stay-at-home orders", "historical measures in the 1918 influenza pandemic" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "non-pharmaceutical countermeasure", "why": "in registry terms" }, { "relation": "was applied in", "target": "COVID-19 pandemic", "why": "worldwide" }, { "relation": "is contrasted with", "target": "quarantine", "why": "which targets exposed individuals" }, { "relation": "is guided by", "target": "World Health Organization", "why": "recommendations" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "WHO and national public health guidance", "Emergency public health laws enabling closures and orders", "Human rights frameworks on proportionality of restrictions" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Educational, economic and mental health costs", "Presenting contested effectiveness debates as settled", "Inequitable impacts", "Confusing distancing with quarantine and isolation" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "understand", "name": "Understand", "description": "What social distancing is.", "rationale": "Public health.", "layers": [ { "id": "definition", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition and measures.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-finding", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition.", "questions": [ { "text": "What is social distancing, and what measures does it include, from distance to lockdown?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Is the question about distancing, quarantine, isolation or another measure?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "rationale", "name": "Rationale", "description": "Rationale.", "findings": [ { "id": "rationale-finding", "name": "Rationale", "description": "Rationale.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do distancing measures reduce transmission, as epidemiology describes?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits the specific measure?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence", "name": "Evidence", "description": "Evidence and costs.", "rationale": "Attribution.", "layers": [ { "id": "effectiveness", "name": "Effectiveness", "description": "Effectiveness.", "findings": [ { "id": "effectiveness-finding", "name": "Effectiveness", "description": "Effectiveness.", "questions": [ { "text": "What does research say about the effectiveness of distancing measures and lockdowns, with findings attributed?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the presentation neutral and attributed?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "costs", "name": "Costs", "description": "Costs.", "findings": [ { "id": "costs-finding", "name": "Costs", "description": "Costs.", "questions": [ { "text": "What social, educational, economic and mental health costs have been documented?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which sources are cited?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "policy", "name": "Policy", "description": "Policy.", "rationale": "Regulation.", "layers": [ { "id": "law", "name": "Law", "description": "Legal basis.", "findings": [ { "id": "law-finding", "name": "Law", "description": "Law.", "questions": [ { "text": "What legal powers enable closures and stay-at-home orders, and what limits apply?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which references are standard?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "debates", "name": "Debates", "description": "Debates.", "findings": [ { "id": "debates-finding", "name": "Debates", "description": "Debates.", "questions": [ { "text": "What debates surround lockdowns and school closures, with positions attributed?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the presentation neutral?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "context", "name": "Context", "description": "History and future.", "rationale": "Context.", "layers": [ { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "findings": [ { "id": "history-finding", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "questions": [ { "text": "How were distancing measures used in the 1918 pandemic and earlier epidemics?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits the 1918 influenza pandemic?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "preparedness", "name": "Preparedness", "description": "Preparedness.", "findings": [ { "id": "preparedness-finding", "name": "Preparedness", "description": "Preparedness.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do pandemic preparedness plans treat distancing measures after COVID-19?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits pandemic preparedness?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should lockdown and school closure be separate entries?", "How should evidence reviews be linked?", "The registry entry has merged aliases naming specific measures; should they be split off?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 4, "layers": 8, "findings": 8, "questions": 16 } }, "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. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "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 social distancing, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent explain social distancing measures and their rationale from public health sources, relay evidence on effectiveness and costs with attribution, describe historical use, and present policy debates neutrally.", "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: lockdown, closing of schools and educational institutions, COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, protective sequestration, workplace closures, avoiding crowding, closing of non-essential businesses, social distancing measures related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic.", "8 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 74 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "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 social distancing, 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.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "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": [ "lockdown", "closing of schools and educational institutions", "COVID-19 pandemic lockdown", "protective sequestration", "workplace closures", "avoiding crowding", "closing of non-essential businesses", "social distancing measures related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 74 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 8 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 social distancing from another, and a social distancing 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing 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 social distancing between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a social distancing 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing and what marks it done.", "questions": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a step of a social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing consumes and what it produces.", "findings": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs", "name": "Inputs, outputs and side effects", "description": "The resources a social distancing 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing 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 social distancing 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 social distancing 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 social distancing 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 social distancing?", "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 social distancing?", "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 social distancing 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 social distancing and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 social distancing is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a social distancing, 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 social distancing, 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 social distancing 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 } } } }