I've been searching on Frank Denneman's site, but I don't think the answer is there to this specific question. His quality is second to none, but I don't think it addresses this.
Example of the difference between a general and specific definition of when share values take affect.
1. A General explanation of when resource pool share values take effect:
"Share values take effect When demand exceeds available resources"
[this is general - no metric specified for what data counters are used to calculate "demand", no data counters specified to define how "available resources" are calculated.]
2. A specific explanation of when resource pool share values take affect:
"Resource pool share values used in conjunction with CPU take affect when the demand, measured in percent utilization, and measured according to the data counter with the exact title of
of the host CPU capacity measured according to the data counter cpu.capacity.total
[ok so I made that counter name up] after subtracting the overhead required by the hypervisor."
I know this isn't how the algorithm works but I am creating an example to try to explain the difference between a general statement of what triggers share values to take affect and a specific definition of the condition that triggers them, defined by specific data counters reaching specific numerical values.
Hopefully that explains the question more clearly