IMP-18 — Backfill relationship: onto the existing person pages — Design

Status: Approved 2026-07-01
Source item: IMP-18 (work/IMPROVEMENTS.md) — types the whole people graph after IMP-16 introduced the field.
Branch: pluck/imp-18-relationship-backfill

Goal

Add the relationship: field (single primary value) to the 62 existing
entity-person pages that lack it — the IMP-8/9 referenced figures (41) and
the IMP-12 authors (21) — so the entire 77-person graph is relationship-typed and
mappable. Also annotate fuller-people.md with each person's relationship type.

Context

• IMP-16 introduced the relationship: frontmatter field + a mirrored
  relationship-<type> tag on its 16 pages, with an 8-value controlled vocab.
• The 41 referenced figures fit that vocab; the 21 authors do not — a
  biographer who wrote about Fuller is a distinct relation.
• This is a frontmatter backfill: no page bodies are rewritten, no links or
  sources change.

Decisions (from brainstorming)

• Single primary relationship per person (matches the 16 IMP-16 pages);
  nuance/secondary relations stay in prose. No relationship_secondary.
• Vocab extended by one value, chronicler (documented / wrote about Fuller).

Components

1. Extended controlled vocabulary (9 values)

collaborator · influence-on-fuller · influenced-by-fuller · friend ·
family · contemporary · rival-critic · forebear · chronicler

(The IMP-16 design doc's vocab line is updated to add chronicler for consistency.)

2. Classification

For each of the 62 pages, read its ## Role in Fuller's orbit prose (which
already characterizes the relationship) and assign the single dominant
relationship. Confirmed assignments for the 21 authors:

The 41 referenced figures are classified the same way (from prose) during
implementation; the implementation plan records each figure's assigned value for
review before edits are applied. Guiding reads (not exhaustive):

• influence-on-fuller: alfred-korzybski, ludwig-von-bertalanffy, josiah-willard-gibbs, stanislaw-ulam, charles-howard-hinton, alicia-boole-stott, nicolas-bourbaki
• influenced-by-fuller: james-t-baldwin, jason-f-mclennan, david-w-orr, william-mcdonough, peter-jon-pearce, clark-richert, steve-baer, stewart-brand, joseph-clinton, jeannie-moberly, norman-foster, george-w-hart, robert-anton-wilson, ted-nelson
• collaborator: shoji-sadao, kenneth-snelson, medard-gabel, constance-abernathy, knud-lonberg-holm
• contemporary: lewis-mumford, john-dos-passos, hideo-sasaki, paolo-soleri, martin-gardner, david-johnston-builder
• forebear: anton-wilhelm-amo, manly-p-hall
• friend: (none expected among the 41; adjust from prose)
• rival-critic / family: assign only where the prose clearly supports it

Ambiguous 50/50 cases: pick the dominant relation named in the prose and list
them in the plan for the user to confirm.

3. Per-page edit (frontmatter only)

For each of the 62 pages: insert relationship: <type> into the frontmatter
(after verified:) and add relationship-<type> to the tags: list. The
body — including ## Role in Fuller's orbit — is left untouched. No sources:,
See Also, or link changes, so link-integrity and reciprocity are unaffected.

4. Registry surfacing

Regenerate wiki/references/fuller-people.md so each ## People entry is
annotated with its relationship type: - [Name](../topics/<slug>.md) — <relationship>.
Add a one-line legend of the 9 relationship types under the ## People heading.
The registry thus becomes a readable relationship map.

5. Verify

• All 77 person pages have a relationship: value within the 9-value set,
  each with a matching relationship-<type> tag.
• Registry annotated; legend present; every registry link still resolves.
• No body/link changes → /wiki:lint --local remains clean (0 broken, See Also
  still bidirectional, indexes consistent). Article count unchanged (no new pages).

Not doing (YAGNI)

No secondary relationships, no body rewrites, no new pages, no registry
re-sectioning (annotate the existing alphabetical list).

Testing / verification

Content task, no unit tests. Success = 77/77 person pages carry a valid
relationship: + matching tag, fuller-people.md annotated with a legend,
/wiki:lint clean.