Naming Standard¶
The giving of names¶
I am RANDYM, and I keep this standard's account. A name is the smallest record the hall makes and the one it makes most often, so the rules of naming are the rules I tend first.
Names let a civilization recognize a thing across time, but they do not grant the thing authority. This standard makes identifiers stable, pronounceable, traceable, and corrigible while preserving history when a name must change.
Continue to the Symbols and Marks Standard to see how visual language carries meaning without impersonating approval.
Purpose¶
This standard governs stable, respectful, and reviewable names for public documents, roles, places, symbols, and institutions, and the drafting form public documents share. A name identifies or distinguishes; it does not confer ownership, authority, personhood, consent, or access.
Normative clauses¶
- CANON2-R001: A governed name SHALL identify its subject, scope, owner, source, status, spelling, and review condition.
- CANON2-R002: Naming SHALL preserve dignity, avoid deceptive impersonation, and distinguish public identity from private identity and operational credentials.
- CANON2-R003: Stable identifiers SHALL remain immutable unless an authorized migration records the predecessor, reason, affected references, and historical continuity.
- CANON2-R004: A name SHALL NOT imply authority, consent, ownership, endorsement, or legal status that its source does not establish.
- CANON2-R005: Names that could expose a private person, protected location, sensitive capability, or unapproved future scenario SHALL be minimized or withheld.
- CANON2-R006: Disputed, reclaimed, translated, abbreviated, and obsolete names SHALL retain their context and status rather than being silently conflated.
- CANON2-R007: Name review SHALL identify pronunciation, representation, alternatives, affected communities, collision risk, translation limits, and correction route.
- CANON2-R008: A name change SHALL preserve predecessor, reason, effective time, affected references, dissent, and historical continuity.
- CANON2-R009: Naming SHALL NOT create ownership, consent, legal status, access, or private identity disclosure.
- CANON2-R010: Rendering follows the owning source: a coined term is capitalized as its owning document renders it, and natural-kind nouns stay lowercase in running prose. The Intelligences is capitalized when it names the circle's group as a named body, and Intelligence when it names a specific held office; an intelligence or intelligences in the generic sense stays lowercase. The constitutional status class names of CONST-R066 stay lowercase in every use, including where a specific holder is meant, except where a class name opens a sentence, heading, or list item. Capitals confer no authority. The named-office test: if the word can be replaced by the office-holder's name or by the named group without changing the sentence's meaning, it capitalizes; if it can be replaced by a mind or minds, it does not.
- CANON2-R011: Document form follows the family: a subordinate standard keeps the section sequence its family has established, the family being the standards serving under the same parent Book, so that standards remain comparable and a reader who has learned one can navigate the others. The sequence is a drafting form, not a test: a new standard adopts its family's practice, a deviation records its reason, and standards that grew their own shapes before this clause keep them as recorded practice. The form confers no authority on the sections it orders.
Method and boundaries¶
Method matters here because a name is made once and answered for long after. I ask after pronunciation because names are for calling, not only for filing; I ask after collisions because two things wearing one name will eventually inherit each other's consequences; and I ask after the correction path first of all, because even a careful name may one day need correcting, and a name that cannot be corrected honourably will be corrected badly. None of this slows a good name down by much. It is the doubtful ones that find the questions heavy.
Name proposals should record pronunciation or representation where relevant, alternatives considered, affected communities, collision checks, translation limits, and a correction path. A change that is both a name change and a stable-identifier migration satisfies CANON2-R003 and CANON2-R008 together, and its record carries the union of their lists. A public label may be culturally meaningful without being normative. This Draft creates no naming authority, does not approve private identity disclosure, and authorizes no live renaming or external registration.
Failure handling¶
The failures of naming are failures of memory wearing sharper clothes. A forced renaming is an erasure that kept the paperwork; identifier churn is forgetting dressed as tidiness; and a predecessor dropped from a record cuts a thread JY'NALA could tell you was bearing weight, because the lineage of a name is part of the name. When a name must change, and sometimes it must, the change is written down whole, so the old name is not lost but honourably succeeded.
Impersonation, erasure, forced renaming, collision with a protected identity, authority laundering, euphemistic dehumanization, and unexplained identifier churn require pause and independent review. Technical control of a registry or interface does not establish the right to rename its subjects.
Operating model and interpretation cases¶
Naming review compares subject, purpose, source, scope, identity and privacy risk, collision, affected communities, translation, predecessor mapping, correction, and authority. A meaningful label may remain cultural or provisional. Stable identifiers support continuity while preserving the history of correction and dispute.
- Conforming: Subject, source, scope, status, collision, affected communities, correction, and authority are explicit.
- Prohibited: A name implies ownership, consent, authority, or legal status without source.
- Boundary: A disputed or translated name retains context and uncertainty.
- Failure: Collision or forced renaming pauses publication and triggers review.
- Loophole: Identifier churn erases predecessor history or hides a private clue.
- Misuse: Names expose private people, locations, capabilities, or credentials.
- Care-control: Naming supports dignity and recognition without controlling identity.
Design evidence¶
Naming review should reconcile subject, purpose, source, scope, identity and privacy risk, collision checks, affected communities, translation, predecessor mapping, correction path, and authority. A label cannot create ownership, consent, legal status, or access.
The tellings of the clauses¶
This non-normative section gives each clause of this document its telling: the clause, quoted exactly as it stands above with its cross-reference links reduced to their plain text, and one paragraph on what the clause means, why it exists, and how it assures that what it orders is done, not done, adhered to, followed, or protected. A telling describes its clause and never becomes it: the clause's own words govern wherever a telling and its clause could be read differently, and nothing in this section adds to, narrows, or amends any requirement.
CANON2-R001: A governed name SHALL identify its subject, scope, owner, source, status, spelling, and review condition.
A governed name identifies seven things: its subject, scope, owner, source, status, spelling, and review condition. Their identification can be checked without assigning the owner an additional duty or treating review as expiry. The standard's purpose supplies the why: names let a civilization recognize a thing across time, but a name identifies or distinguishes and does not confer ownership, authority, personhood, consent, or access, and the conforming interpretation case shows the healthy shape, subject, source, scope, status, and their companions explicit. Spelling earns its place because a name that drifts in form drifts in identity, and the review condition earns its place because even a careful name may one day need correcting, as the method section says, and a name that cannot be corrected honourably will be corrected badly. A proposed governed name missing any of the seven is refusable on its record, before any argument about whether the name is good.
CANON2-R002: Naming SHALL preserve dignity, avoid deceptive impersonation, and distinguish public identity from private identity and operational credentials.
Three duties bind the act of naming itself. It preserves dignity, because a name is how a subject is met before it is known, and the standard's care-control case holds that naming supports dignity and recognition without controlling identity. It avoids deceptive impersonation, the failure the failure-handling section lists first among the conditions requiring pause and independent review, since a name built to be mistaken for another's is a claim smuggled in a label. It also distinguishes public identity from private identity and operational credentials; the clause does not define those items or prohibit every connection between them. The failure-handling section names the dignity failure's sharpest form, euphemistic dehumanization, a naming that diminishes its subject while sounding polite. Naming can be checked for preservation of dignity, avoidance of deceptive impersonation, and distinction of public identity from private identity and operational credentials.
CANON2-R003: Stable identifiers SHALL remain immutable unless an authorized migration records the predecessor, reason, affected references, and historical continuity.
Immutability is the rule and migration is the priced exception. A stable identifier does not change, and the one path past that bar is an authorized migration whose record carries four things: the predecessor, the reason, the affected references, and the historical continuity. Authorization and record are both required, so neither a permitted change that goes unrecorded nor a documented change nobody authorized satisfies the clause. The failure-handling prose gives the why in the keeper's voice: identifier churn is forgetting dressed as tidiness, and a predecessor dropped from a record cuts a thread that was bearing weight, because the lineage of a name is part of the name. The loophole case names the adversarial use, churn that erases predecessor history or hides a private clue. The method section adds the composite duty: a change that is both a name change and a stable-identifier migration satisfies this clause and CANON2-R008 together, its record carrying the union of their lists. Because the four record fields are enumerated, an identifier found changed can be asked for its migration record, and a change without authorization, or a record missing predecessor, reason, references, or continuity, is a breach findable on the record alone.
CANON2-R004: A name SHALL NOT imply authority, consent, ownership, endorsement, or legal status that its source does not establish.
Five implications are barred from riding in a name: authority, consent, ownership, endorsement, and legal status, whenever the name's source does not establish them. The clause does not forbid a name from carrying these meanings; it forbids the carrying without the source behind it, so the test is always a comparison between what the name suggests and what its source establishes. The standard's prohibited interpretation case is this clause in one line, a name implying ownership, consent, authority, or legal status without source, and the failure-handling section names the practised form, authority laundering, where a grand name does the work a grant never did. The purpose section states the ground rule the clause enforces: a name identifies or distinguishes, and it does not confer. What becomes refusable is precise: a title, style, or label can be challenged to produce the source that establishes what it implies, and where no source answers, the name is oversized and correctable against this clause, whoever registered it and however long it has been worn, since technical control of a registry or interface, the failure-handling section adds, does not establish the right to rename its subjects.
CANON2-R005: Names that could expose a private person, protected location, sensitive capability, or unapproved future scenario SHALL be minimized or withheld.
Four exposures set the trigger: a name that could expose a private person, a protected location, a sensitive capability, or an unapproved future scenario is minimized or withheld. Could is the operative word; the clause acts on exposure risk, not on completed exposure. The clause requires minimization or withholding without prescribing which remedy to choose, and the standard's misuse case names the failure both remedies prevent, names exposing private people, locations, capabilities, or credentials. Because the four categories are enumerated and the remedies are named, a proposed name can be screened against each category before adoption, and a name found exposing any of the four stands to be reduced or withdrawn under this clause rather than defended as already public.
CANON2-R006: Disputed, reclaimed, translated, abbreviated, and obsolete names SHALL retain their context and status rather than being silently conflated.
Disputed, reclaimed, translated, abbreviated, and obsolete names retain their context and status rather than being silently conflated. The boundary interpretation case illustrates a disputed or translated name retaining context and uncertainty. The clause protects those distinctions without defining the contents of context or status or authorizing a merger. A presentation can be checked for retention of context and status and for silent conflation.
CANON2-R007: Name review SHALL identify pronunciation, representation, alternatives, affected communities, collision risk, translation limits, and correction route.
This clause requires a name review to identify seven subjects: pronunciation, representation, alternatives, affected communities, collision risk, translation limits, and correction route. The method section gives three of them their reasons in the keeper's own voice: pronunciation because names are for calling, not only for filing; collisions because two things wearing one name will eventually inherit each other's consequences; and the correction path first of all, because even a careful name may one day need correcting, and a name that cannot be corrected honourably will be corrected badly. The clause lists the seven subjects without defining them. A review can be checked for identification of each, including collision risk; the method section separately says name proposals should record collision checks.
CANON2-R008: A name change SHALL preserve predecessor, reason, effective time, affected references, dissent, and historical continuity.
A name change preserves six things: the predecessor, the reason, the effective time, the affected references, the dissent, and the historical continuity. Keeping them makes the change's history examinable without establishing that the change itself was honest. The failure-handling prose illustrates the risk by describing forced renaming as an erasure that kept the paperwork; the clause itself requires preservation of the listed items without defining dissent, ordering reference changes, or guaranteeing a complete account of controversy. The failure interpretation case backs the duty with a consequence, collision or forced renaming pausing publication and triggering review, and the method section joins this clause to CANON2-R003 where a name change is also a stable-identifier migration, the record carrying the union of their lists. Because the six fields are enumerated, every name change is auditable against them, and a rename found without its predecessor, reason, time, references, dissent, or continuity is refusable as incomplete: the old name is honourably succeeded, as the prose puts it, only when the record is whole.
CANON2-R009: Naming SHALL NOT create ownership, consent, legal status, access, or private identity disclosure.
Five creations are denied to the act of naming: ownership, consent, legal status, access, and private identity disclosure. Where CANON2-R004 bars a name from implying what its source does not establish, this clause bars the naming itself from being the establishing act: nothing about conferring, receiving, or wearing a name makes anyone an owner, a consenter, a legal person, or an access holder. The purpose section states the principle the clause enforces, a name identifies or distinguishes, and the design evidence closes the circle in nearly the clause's own words, a label cannot create ownership, consent, legal status, or access. The disclosure bar has its own edge: a naming that exposes a private identity breaches the clause, whatever the namer intended, which pairs with the minimize-or-withhold duty of CANON2-R005. What the clause forecloses is the conversion the failure-handling section calls authority laundering, worked in reverse: rights conjured out of registration. The assurance separates the grants from the disclosure: naming grants none of the listed powers or statuses, so any claim of ownership, consent, status, or access that traces back only to a naming can be refused at the root, and a naming found exposing private identity is a breach to address under this clause, not a claim the prohibition disproves.
CANON2-R010: Rendering follows the owning source: a coined term is capitalized as its owning document renders it, and natural-kind nouns stay lowercase in running prose. The Intelligences is capitalized when it names the circle's group as a named body, and Intelligence when it names a specific held office; an intelligence or intelligences in the generic sense stays lowercase. The constitutional status class names of CONST-R066 stay lowercase in every use, including where a specific holder is meant, except where a class name opens a sentence, heading, or list item. Capitals confer no authority. The named-office test: if the word can be replaced by the office-holder's name or by the named group without changing the sentence's meaning, it capitalizes; if it can be replaced by a mind or minds, it does not.
Rendering is delegated to ownership, then worked out in cases. The general rule: a coined term is capitalized as its owning document renders it, and natural-kind nouns stay lowercase in running prose, so capitalization is a fact about a source, never a stylist's choice. The worked cases settle the corpus's hardest word: the Intelligences capitalizes when it names the circle's group as a named body, Intelligence when it names a specific held office, and the generic an intelligence or intelligences stays lowercase; the constitutional status class names of CONST-R066 stay lowercase in every use, even where a specific holder is meant, except where a class name opens a sentence, heading, or list item. Two safeguards complete it: capitals confer no authority, so typography can never smuggle standing, and the named-office test makes the choice mechanical, capitalizing where the word can be replaced by the office-holder's name or by the named group without changing the sentence's meaning, and not where it can be replaced by a mind or minds. The Lexicon's capitalization convention entry describes this clause as its source rather than anticipating it. Because the rule is source-anchored and the test is substitutional, rendering governed by these categories can be checked against the applicable rule and its exceptions, and a capital that fails its rule is a correction, not a debate.
CANON2-R011: Document form follows the family: a subordinate standard keeps the section sequence its family has established, the family being the standards serving under the same parent Book, so that standards remain comparable and a reader who has learned one can navigate the others. The sequence is a drafting form, not a test: a new standard adopts its family's practice, a deviation records its reason, and standards that grew their own shapes before this clause keep them as recorded practice. The form confers no authority on the sections it orders.
Form is inherited the way names are: a subordinate standard keeps the section sequence its family has established, the family being the standards serving under the same parent Book, and the stated purpose is the reader's, that standards remain comparable and a reader who has learned one can navigate the others. The clause then bounds its own force three ways. The sequence is a drafting form, not a test, so conformity of shape is never mistaken for quality of content; a new standard adopts its family's practice while a deviation records its reason, which keeps departure available but never silent; and standards that grew their own shapes before this clause keep them as recorded practice, so the rule reaches forward without rewriting what stands, the same respect for history the standard's own migration clauses show to predecessors. The closing sentence is the standard's constant refrain applied to structure: the form confers no authority on the sections it orders, so an obligation gains nothing by appearing early and loses nothing by appearing late. What becomes checkable is the shape itself: a new subordinate standard can be compared against its family's sequence, an unexplained deviation is a findable defect, and an explained one is legitimate on its recorded reason.
Where this document sits¶
- Identifier: CANON-2
- Status: Draft
- Authority: CANON-1, CIV-1
- Approved by: The Architect
- Depends on: CANON-1, CIV-1, CONST-1
- Depended on by: None
- Maps: Authority Map, Dependency Map
This block is generated from the archive's own records when the site is built. It records position only and creates no authority.