Definition of Organization is circular

[rivettp]

"A generic organization that can be formal or informal, legal or non-legal. It can have members, or not" says nothing about what it means to be an organization. For example it does not tell me whether a Sole Trader (inherently a single person) registered as a LLC counts as an :Organization.
Nor does it say how organized it has to be. I presume a group of people in line for a ticket would not count. But what about those people attending a single lecture? What if they register and attend the same class for a whole term? How about the group of people who happen to have the same person buy a lottery ticket for them each week? What if they agree with that person that if anyone of them wins the prize will be shared among them all? At any point have these become organizations as opposed to a set of individuals dealing with a common service provider?

[uscholdm]

Good input, those are questions we have struggled with over the years. If you have any proposed alternative definitions, please share them.

More generally, we are gradually updating class definitions so that they are more like definitions rather than merely saying some things that are true about instances, but are not sufficient to know whether an individual is an instance - as your comment lays out very well.

[rivettp]

How about this "persistent structure of one or more people formed to act towards some purpose; collection of the same" which allows for a Chamber of Commerce and the UN, which are organizations composed of other organizations

[uscholdm]

How about this "persistent structure of one or more people formed to act towards some purpose; collection of the same" which allows for a Chamber of Commerce and the UN, which are organizations composed of other organizations

I agree that purpose should be central to any organization, and that organizations often have sub-organizations. As far as necessarily having people as members, we did not want to commit to that. There are legal entities that function somewhat like organizations but have no people as members (e.g. special purpose vehicles) . A no-member organization will presumably have people directing it. Users are free to create subclasses of gist:Organization that are required to have members.

[MichaelSullivanArchitect]

The very first thing an AGI will do is incorporate within the USA, giving it the privileges of personhood. After that, the game is over,

[rjyounes]

We have to allow members to be organizations, not people. I am not a member of the UN even if I belong to a country. But then it's circular.

Doug: Membership in an organization must be intentional.

Rebecca: Persistence is key. A group of protesters is not an organization, unless they form a structure that persists.

Jamie: A book club or poker group is not an organization.
David Wallace, Peter, Doug: A book club is an organization

David Baker: Should be more structured than a book club.

Michael: we probably can't come up with a definition that we could use to infer something into the class, but we can come up with necessary conditions.

• Persistence
• Structure
• Purpose
• Has activities
• Members are either people or other organizations (but that's circular)

Peter: concern about persistence because we can't say what it is.

Scott: Let's not get hung up on the book club example. It doesn't matter. The definition is recursive, not circular.

Michael: Can avoid circularity by starting with "an entity with a purpose."

Some people think membership is voluntary. Others don't think it's a requirement, though perhaps typical.

[marksem]

Internet 1st hit:
an organized body of people with a particular purpose, especially a business, society, association, etc.

Webster:
An administrative and functional structure (such as a business or a political party)
Also: the personnel of such a structure

[rjyounes]

Michael in chat; definition from a paper he co-authored:

ORGANISATIONAL UNIT (OU): an Entity [with a defined identity] for MANAGING the per-
formance of ACTIVITIES to ACHIEVE one or more PURPOSES. An OU may be characterised
by:
• the nature of its PURPOSE(S);
• one or more PERSONS working for the OU;
• RESOURCES allocated to the OU;
• other OUs that MANAGE or are MANAGED-BY the OU;
• its ASSETS;
• its STAKEHOLDERS;
• being LEGALLY OWNED;
• its MARKET (if it is a VENDOR).
Notes:

1. The term OU is deliberately defined with no constraint on its size or place within an or-
   ganisation. Furthermore, no special terms for OUs of any particular size are defined (e.g.
   division, department). This is because no consistent use of such terms can be found across
   different enterprises, or even within a single enterprise over time. Therefore the existence
   of a very small and simple unit, even corresponding with a single PERSON, or a very large
   and complex structure (e.g. a multi-national CORPORATION) can equally be represented
   as an OU. The structure of an OU is represented by the set of as many other OUs and
   MANAGEMENT LINKS (see below) as required.
2. The term MANAGEMENT LINK leads to the concept of higher-level and lower-level OUs
   depending on which MANAGE and which are MANAGED.
3. The terms ‘enterprise’ and ‘organisation’ are not defined in the Ontology, but a user of the
   Ontology may wish to define one or other of them as a high-level OU, perhaps corresponding
   with highest OU in the scope of interest.
4. An individual PERSON may correspond to, or belong to, more than one OU, one for each
   different role or function.
5. An essential PURPOSE of most OUs is to maximise performance against financial and other
   organisational OBJECTIVES.

[rjyounes]

Joaquin in chat:

A school is an organization with the purpose to educate children.
A class in that school is an organization with the purpose to teach domain specific knowledge at an appropriate level.
Kids playing in the playground chaotically is a group of actors without a direct purpose other than play.
At the atomic unit its teachers and students which are people.