D5 · Forming: branch accounts

Explain what each proposed form does

A cluster label is only the start of an account of an organizational form. D5 returns to the member communities and asks how each group organizes, what its members share and where that explanation breaks down.

Where this stage starts

D4 has fixed the branch definitions and cross-links. The aggregator has the local community accounts, their adaptations, the population model and its limits. It can read the records behind a branch, but it cannot redraw the branches or change the model here.

What the aggregator does

For each branch, the aggregator writes a narrative that a reader new to the model could follow. It explains what the group shares with the population account, what it does differently, and which participant evidence supports those differences. The representative cases include a poor fit, so a neat label cannot hide variation.

The account then asks whether the proposed form links constructs through a defensible explanation. A group whose shared codes cannot be tied to how its members organized stays a grouping. Size does not make a branch important, and a name that fits the codes but not the communities is open to criticism.

Comparisons of absence need care. If a relationship is rare across the collection, its absence from a small branch may say little. The stage records whether there was enough chance to test the claim before it treats an absence as a boundary condition.

It also keeps three judgments apart: whether the original population model fit, whether the revised local account is supported, and whether the shared branch explanation is supported. A failed first fit can sit beside an adequate later local account.

Finally, the aggregator follows one explanation down to a community and its quotations, then back up. It examines how long coordination stayed visible and what the records say survived. Silence stays unknown, and remains on the canvas need other evidence before they count as continued organizing.

What the next stage receives

D6 receives the branch accounts and their limits, ready to be written into the whole model. Suggested renamings or new distinctions travel forward as proposals. If no shared branch is supported, the account goes straight from the population model to local evidence.