{ "model": { "rank": 12400, "code": "thing-q681615", "model_id": "vr.tr.syndicate", "name": "syndicate", "purpose": "Let an agent explain syndicates in their business, media, financial and trade union senses, relay how each kind is organised from legal and industry sources, describe the French syndicat usage, and distinguish these from criminal syndicates and from cartels and cooperatives.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Society, people and institutions", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "SOC", "domain": "SOC.ORG", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q681615/", "tier": 2, "score": 40, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "print syndicate", "Lloyds Syndicate", "agriculture and forestry trade union", "national professional union in France" ], "aliasCount": 4, "merged": 4, "knownIn": 40, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": "vr.tr.syndicate", "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q681615", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q681615", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-13T12:48:09Z", "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": 4, "engine": "claude" }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q681615", "registryId": "vr.tr.syndicate", "name": "syndicate", "version": "0.2.0-wave.4", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "SOC.ORG" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q681615/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.syndicate", "name": "syndicate", "purpose": "Let an agent explain syndicates in their business, media, financial and trade union senses, relay how each kind is organised from legal and industry sources, describe the French syndicat usage, and distinguish these from criminal syndicates and from cartels and cooperatives.", "definition": "An association of individuals or organisations formed to pursue a common business or interest, including Lloyd s of London insurance syndicates, print syndicates that distribute columns and comics to newspapers, lending and underwriting syndicates in finance, French professional and trade unions known as syndicats including agricultural and forestry unions, and, pejoratively, organised crime syndicates; the legal form varies by country.", "what_it_is_for": "Pooling resources or interests for a common purpose.", "affordances": [ "explain senses", "relay organisation of each kind", "describe French usage", "distinguish related bodies" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Common purpose", "Many legal forms", "Sector-specific meanings", "Pejorative sense" ], "appearance": "Not a visible object; an association.", "visual_identification": [ "Association for a common business or interest", "Lloyd s syndicate, print syndicate, loan syndicate, French syndicat, agricultural and forestry union", "A cartel restricts competition; a cooperative is member-owned; a crime syndicate is an illegal group" ], "physical_properties": [ { "quantity": "Lloyd s syndicates", "typical_range": "about 80-100", "unit": "count", "note": "active" }, { "quantity": "French syndicat law", "typical_range": "1884", "unit": "year", "note": "Waldeck-Rousseau law" } ], "families_and_kinds": [ "insurance syndicates at Lloyd s", "print and media syndicates", "loan and underwriting syndicates", "French trade unions and professional syndicats", "agricultural and forestry unions", "crime syndicates as a pejorative usage" ], "related_models": [ { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "organization", "why": "in registry terms" }, { "relation": "is a kind of", "target": "legal form", "why": "in registry terms" }, { "relation": "is exemplified by", "target": "Lloyd s of London", "why": "insurance syndicates" }, { "relation": "is contrasted with", "target": "cartel", "why": "which restricts competition" } ], "identifiers": [], "standards_and_regulation": [ "Lloyd s and insurance regulation", "French labour code on syndicats", "Securities rules for underwriting syndicates", "Competition law" ], "failure_modes_and_hazards": [ "Confusing senses", "Associating legitimate syndicates with crime", "Registry aliases mixing sectors and countries" ], "in_scope": [], "out_of_scope": [], "characteristics": [] }, "sources": [], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "understand", "name": "Understand", "description": "What a syndicate is.", "rationale": "Definition.", "layers": [ { "id": "definition", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition and senses.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-finding", "name": "Definition", "description": "Definition.", "questions": [ { "text": "What is a syndicate, and how do its insurance, media, finance, union and criminal senses differ?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Is the question about a legitimate syndicate type or organised crime?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "kinds", "name": "Kinds", "description": "Kinds.", "findings": [ { "id": "kinds-finding", "name": "Kinds", "description": "Kinds.", "questions": [ { "text": "What are Lloyd s syndicates, print syndicates, loan syndicates and French syndicats?", "kind": "definition" }, { "text": "Which entry fits the specific kind?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "business", "name": "Business", "description": "Business syndicates.", "rationale": "Regulation.", "layers": [ { "id": "insurance", "name": "Insurance", "description": "Insurance.", "findings": [ { "id": "insurance-finding", "name": "Insurance", "description": "Insurance.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do Lloyd s syndicates underwrite risk, and how are they regulated?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which references are standard?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "finance", "name": "Finance", "description": "Finance and media.", "findings": [ { "id": "finance-finding", "name": "Finance", "description": "Finance.", "questions": [ { "text": "How do loan and underwriting syndicates and print syndicates operate?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which sources are cited?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "unions", "name": "Unions", "description": "Unions.", "rationale": "Attribution.", "layers": [ { "id": "french", "name": "French", "description": "French syndicats.", "findings": [ { "id": "french-finding", "name": "French", "description": "French.", "questions": [ { "text": "How are French professional and trade unions organised, including agricultural and forestry unions?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits trade unions in France?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "syndicalism", "name": "Syndicalism", "description": "Syndicalism.", "findings": [ { "id": "syndicalism-finding", "name": "Syndicalism", "description": "Syndicalism.", "questions": [ { "text": "What is syndicalism as a political tradition, with positions attributed?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Is the presentation neutral?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "context", "name": "Context", "description": "Crime sense and history.", "rationale": "Context.", "layers": [ { "id": "crime", "name": "Crime", "description": "Crime syndicates.", "findings": [ { "id": "crime-finding", "name": "Crime", "description": "Crime.", "questions": [ { "text": "How is the term used for organised crime, and where is that covered?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits organised crime?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] }, { "id": "history", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "findings": [ { "id": "history-finding", "name": "History", "description": "History.", "questions": [ { "text": "How did the word syndicate develop from Greek and French roots?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "text": "Which entry fits the history of the term?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should Lloyd s syndicate, print syndicate and French syndicat be separate primary entries?", "How should legal sources be linked?", "The registry entry has merged aliases naming distinct kinds; 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": "organisation or institution", "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 syndicate, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Let an agent explain syndicates in their business, media, financial and trade union senses, relay how each kind is organised from legal and industry sources, describe the French syndicat usage, and distinguish these from criminal syndicates and from cartels and cooperatives.", "characteristics": { "substance": "social", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "collective" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: print syndicate, Lloyds Syndicate, agriculture and forestry trade union, national professional union in France.", "4 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 40 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 syndicate, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "a social arrangement between people", "physicalCharacter": [ "Acts through people, and only through them.", "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. Recognised by name, register entry and the people acting in its name, and those change while it stays the same body." ], "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": [ "print syndicate", "Lloyds Syndicate", "agriculture and forestry trade union", "national professional union in France" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 40 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 4 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 syndicate from another, and a syndicate 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate 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 syndicate 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate 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 syndicate from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate 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 syndicate 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 syndicate between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate 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 syndicate, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a syndicate 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "people-and-responsibility", "name": "People, roles and responsibility", "description": "Who stands in what relation to a syndicate.", "rationale": "Social things are defined by the relations people hold to them, and those relations change without the thing changing.", "layers": [ { "id": "roles-and-parties", "name": "Roles and parties", "description": "The roles that exist around a syndicate and who fills them.", "findings": [ { "id": "role-assignments", "name": "Role assignments and their validity", "description": "Who holds which role over a syndicate, from when, and on whose authority.", "questions": [ { "id": "role-assignments-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a role over a syndicate, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "role-assignments-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a role over a syndicate, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "role-assignments-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a role over a syndicate is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "ownership-and-accountability", "name": "Ownership and accountability", "description": "Who answers for a syndicate and who may decide about it.", "findings": [ { "id": "accountability", "name": "Accountability and decision rights", "description": "Where responsibility for a syndicate sits when something goes wrong.", "questions": [ { "id": "accountability-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes responsibility for a syndicate, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "accountability-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about responsibility for a syndicate, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "accountability-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once responsibility for a syndicate is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "legal-identity", "name": "Legal identity and mandate", "description": "What syndicate is in law and what it exists to do.", "rationale": "Legal identity survives changes of name, address, staff and premises, which is exactly why it must be recorded separately from all of them.", "layers": [ { "id": "registration", "name": "Legal form and registration", "description": "Form, register, identifiers and jurisdiction.", "findings": [ { "id": "registration-record", "name": "Registration and identifiers", "description": "What names this body unambiguously in law.", "questions": [ { "id": "registration-record-q01", "text": "What legal form does syndicate take, in which register, under which identifier?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "registration-record-q02", "text": "What survives a rename, a merger or a move of premises, and what does not?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "mandate", "name": "Mandate and governing instrument", "description": "The purpose it is bound to and the document that binds it.", "findings": [ { "id": "mandate-record", "name": "Mandate and its source", "description": "What it may do, and the instrument that says so.", "questions": [ { "id": "mandate-record-q01", "text": "What is the mandate of syndicate, and which founding or governing instrument grants it?", "kind": "provenance" }, { "id": "mandate-record-q02", "text": "What lies outside the mandate, and what should an agent do when asked for it?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "governance-and-membership", "name": "Governance, membership and decision rights", "description": "Who decides in syndicate and who belongs to it.", "rationale": "Authority inside an organisation is held by roles, not people, and an agent needs to know which role can commit it.", "layers": [ { "id": "decision-rights", "name": "Decision rights", "description": "Bodies, offices and what each may bind.", "findings": [ { "id": "authority-map", "name": "Who may bind the organisation", "description": "The offices that can commit it and their limits.", "questions": [ { "id": "authority-map-q01", "text": "Which bodies or offices of syndicate may take which decisions, and up to what limit?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "authority-map-q02", "text": "What evidence shows that a given person currently holds that office?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] }, { "id": "membership", "name": "Membership and affiliation", "description": "Who counts as part of it and on what terms.", "findings": [ { "id": "membership-rules", "name": "Membership and its evidence", "description": "Classes of member, how membership starts and ends.", "questions": [ { "id": "membership-rules-q01", "text": "What kinds of membership or affiliation does syndicate have, and how does each begin and end?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "membership-rules-q02", "text": "What may a member do in its name, and what may they not?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a syndicate 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 syndicate and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate 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 syndicate is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a syndicate, 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 syndicate, 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 syndicate 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 } } } }