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57 changes: 57 additions & 0 deletions docs/schema-proposal.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -82,6 +82,58 @@ enrichment:
submitted upstream
([LiturgicalCalendarAPI PR #718](https://github.com/Liturgical-Calendar/LiturgicalCalendarAPI/pull/718)).

## Identifier durability

Three cases are already on this repository's record. None is a mistake of execution; each
is what a name-derived identifier does when the name, the type, or the source index moves.

- **The strip rule is already broken at scale.** The scheme requires generic type words to
be stripped, because "the *type* is an attribute, not part of the identity" — yet 58
seeded IDs carry the Italian type word (`circ:it-arcidiocesi-di-acerenza`,
`circ:it-arcidiocesi-di-agrigento`, `circ:it-arcidiocesi-di-amalfi-cava-de-tirreni`, and
55 more), and 31 ordinariates carry theirs in ten languages:
`circ:au-military-ordinariate-of-australia`, `circ:de-deutsches-militarordinariat`,
`circ:it-ordinariato-militare-per-l-italia`, `circ:es-arzobispado-castrense-de-espana`,
`circ:pl-ordynariat-polowy-wojska-polskiego`, `circ:sk-vojensky-ordinariat-slovenska`,
`circ:hu-magyarorszagi-katonai-ordinariatus`, `circ:lt-lietuvos-kariuomenes-ordinariatas`,
`circ:ba-vojni-ordinarijat-u-bosne-i-hercegovine`, `circ:br-ordinariado-militar-do-brasil`,
and the rest. Those two cohorts are 89 of the seed's 2,935 entries (two further entries,
`circ:fr-diocese-aux-armees-francaises` and `circ:us-archdiocese-for-the-military-services`,
carry a type word outside them). Rule 1 holds that type is not identity; 89 identifiers
record the opposite, and correcting them would rename 89 live IDs.
- **A live ID has already been renamed.** `circ:it-opus-dei` became `circ:int-opus-dei`
(commit `5067fb8`) once the country segment proved wrong for a supranational personal
prelature. The correction is right; what had to change to make it is the identifier that
was supposed to be stable. "Seed and its limits" above records the same case.
- **Two sees are told apart by an ordinal.** `circ:cn-xinjiang-1` and `circ:cn-xinjiang-2`
"carry ordinal qualifiers pending proper disambiguation" — an arbitrary fact about
arrival order in the source index, not about either circumscription, and one that will be
wrong for at least one of them the moment the disambiguation lands.

Each case dissolves when the canonical identifier is machine-readable and the
human-readable layer is guaranteed beside it — both, not one at the cost of the other:

```text
id: R7kQp2mXf4LdTbz9Ns3Hc1 # canonical, machine-readable, minted once
# (illustrative value: shape only, not a minted ID)
alias: circ:it-arcidiocesi-di-acerenza # permanent, resolvable, never reused
labels: "Arcidiocesi di Acerenza"@it · "Archidioecesis Acheruntina"@la ·
"Archdiocese of Acerenza"@en
type: archdiocese # an attribute, exactly as rule 1 already asks
```

Under that shape the strip rule needs no enforcement, because no type word is load-bearing;
the Opus Dei correction changes `nation` and adds a label, leaving the alias
`circ:it-opus-dei` resolvable forever alongside `circ:int-opus-dei`; and the two Xinjiang
sees each hold a distinct canonical ID from the moment they are seeded, with the pending
disambiguation arriving as labels rather than as a renumbering.

The general argument — why canonical identifiers should be machine-readable, what that
costs, and how the human-readable layer is guaranteed rather than left optional — is set
out once in *Identifier Durability: Machine-Readable Canonical IRIs* (CDCF
`foundation-docs`, `research/identifier-durability-opaque-canonical-iris.md`) and is not
restated here.

## Open questions for the committee

1. The namespace prefix (`circ:`) and its coordination with the other registries'
Expand All @@ -94,3 +146,8 @@ enrichment:
5. Whether Ordinariates for Eastern-rite faithful without their own hierarchy, and
pastoral structures like apostolic exarchates in the diaspora, need a dedicated
type taxonomy beyond the Annuario's.
6. Whether the canonical ID of a circumscription should be machine-readable and minted
once, with every slug the scheme above produces (`circ:us-boston`,
`circ:it-arcidiocesi-di-acerenza`, `circ:it-opus-dei`) kept as a permanent resolvable
alias and every see name carried as a multilingual label — keeping this scheme intact
as the human-readable layer rather than replacing it (see "Identifier durability").