Referent

Perfect — here’s an extended wiki note that folds in that case:

Definition The referent is the thing (real or imaginary) that a node’s IRI refers to. Every node IRI is an identifier for its referent.

Node vs. referent

Referent: the subject that the node’s IRI names (a person, concept, event, dataset, etc.).
Node: the mesh construct that manages flows about that referent.
- To talk about the node itself, you use its node handle (e.g. published IRI https://ns.example.org/persons/djradon/_node-handle or mesh identifier <djradon/_node-handle>).

Where it’s described

The referent’s description lives in the node’s reference flow.
The node’s own metadata and provenance live in the _node-* flows (e.g. _node-metadata-flow, _node-config-*).

Special case: data nodes

In a data node, the referent is not an external entity but an evolvable dataset contained in the node.
The dataset evolves as versioned distributions inside the node’s _data-flow (e.g. v1/, v2/, …).
The _ref-flow may describe the dataset, e.g. its name, type, and provenance.
Example:
- Node IRI: https://ns.example.org/projects/atlas/
- Referent: the Atlas dataset (identified by the node IRI, evolving over time).
- _ref-flow: declares it as a dataset, supplies label and attribution.
- _data-flow: provides concrete versions (v1, v2, …).

👉 Would you like me to also draft the paired wiki note for “Node handle”, so your docs have “Referent” and “Node handle” defined side-by-side?

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