D5 · Forming: branch accounts

Explain what each proposed form actually does

A cluster label is not yet 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 branch definitions and cross-links. The aggregator has the local community accounts, their adaptations, the population model and its limits. It can inspect 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 a stranger 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. Representative cases include a poor fit, so a neat label does not conceal variation.

The account then asks whether the proposed form links constructs through a defensible explanation. A group whose shared codes cannot be connected to how its members organized remains a grouping. Branch size alone does not make it important, and a name that fits the codes but not the communities needs criticism.

Comparisons of absence require care. If a relationship is rare throughout the collection, failing to observe it in a small branch may tell us little. The stage records whether there was enough opportunity to test the claim before treating 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 original fit can coexist with 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 remained visible and what the records say survived. Silence stays unknown; canvas remains do not by themselves prove that organizing continued.

What the next stage receives

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