A professional’s authority rarely exists in isolation. Work occurs through organizations, clients, teams, institutions, locations, professional memberships, collaborations, publications, and projects. If the public record contains only disconnected names, much of the meaning disappears.
Relationships provide context. An article is authored by someone. A professional is affiliated with an organization. A service is offered at a location. A credential is issued by an institution. A project involves participants. A source is derived from another source.
Provenance standards and web vocabularies both model relationships explicitly because connection changes meaning. The same person can participate in several organizations without becoming identical to any of them.
Relationships also require time. A current affiliation and a historical affiliation are different facts. A collaboration may end while the resulting publication remains. A project can be completed while its evidence remains relevant.
Dominator’s relationship layer makes authority more understandable because it shows how the pieces of the public record belong together without flattening them.