Intblock inclusion policy

Defines what belongs in the intblocks dataset and how to classify records with scope_category.

Inclusion criteria

An intblock is included when it is useful as a stable join target for membership, hierarchy (partof), or named reference sets used by other records in this repository.

Kind	Include?	Examples
Intergovernmental organization (IGO)	Yes	UN, NATO, AU, ASEAN
Treaty / convention with parties roster	Yes	UNFCCC, CBD, UNCLOS
Standing policy forum / process	Yes	G7, G20, ARF, FATF
Named geographic / set groupings	Yes, labeled reference_enumeration	SIDS, Maghreb, Caribbean
Country attribute partitions	No — use country fields	Traffic hand, DVD region, scripts, legal tradition, rail gauge, broadcast systems
Ad-hoc news coalitions / one-off summits	Usually no	Unless membership is durable and sourced
Socioeconomic rankings / indices	No	HDI lists, GDP leagues (out of country & intblock scope)
Government form / regime typology	No on countries; not as intblock membership	Optional vocab only: data/vocabs/government_forms.yaml

Attribute partitions → country fields

These classifications were previously inverted as intblocks and are now country properties (with controlled vocabs under data/vocabs/):

Former blocktype	Country field
traffichand	car_side (left | right)
writingdirection	writing_directions
writingsystem	writing_systems
dvdregion	dvd_region
teleregion	broadcast_systems
lawsystem	legal_systems
railgauge	rail_gauges
govform	(retired; vocab-only, not on countries)

Retired intblock ids map via data/attribute_intblock_migrations.yaml (exported as data/datasets/attribute_intblock_migrations.json).

scope_category values

Value	Meaning
igo	Standing intergovernmental organization with secretariat/HQ
treaty_body	Treaty, protocol, or convention (parties are members)
policy_forum	Forum, process, or club without full IGO personality
reference_enumeration	Named geographic or set grouping (not attribute partitions)

Optional field; high-visibility and status: formal records should set it. Validation warns (non-blocking) when status: formal and scope_category is missing.

Boundaries vs treaties in partof

partof expresses organizational hierarchy, not “established by treaty X”. Treaty nesting (protocol → convention) is allowed. Organization → pure treaty links should be described in text instead (see partof hierarchy validation).

Specialized UN agencies prefer partof: UN (not ECOSOC alone).

Intblock id naming

• Uppercase ASCII letters and digits only. Filename stem must match id exactly (case-sensitive).
• Prefer the official acronym the organization uses (NATO, OECD, AUKUS).
• No hyphens or spaces: drop punctuation (NORTHSEASUMMIT, FATFGREYLIST).
• If two bodies share an acronym, keep the well-known id and disambiguate the other (sports/ICC vs criminal-court alias) via intblocks_aliases.json — do not silently reuse an id.
• Do not invent nonce abbreviations that the organization itself does not use.
• Typos in existing ids are fixed through the alias mechanism (rename + alias), not by leaving a misspelled primary key.

Directory vs blocktype

• The directory under data/intblocks/ is the primary blocktype and must exist in data/blocktypes/blocktypes.yaml.
• The YAML blocktype list may include additional keys (military + political).
• Thin categories (few records) are allowed; empty directories should be removed.
• Do not create a new category folder without adding the blocktype to the taxonomy in the same PR.

Related

• entity-classification-policy.md
• ai-consumers.md
• agents/add-intblock-example.md — worked add-a-record walkthrough
• enrichment.md — Wikidata completeness exclusions