The term Decifact uses
Decifact uses Cross-System Decision Comparability as its primary public-facing term for the question of whether a comparison basis exists across independently governed judgments.
Cross-System Decision Comparability asks whether a comparison basis exists across independently governed judgments. Comparison basis refers to the structural conditions whose presence or absence is being determined.
Why the problem exists
Two systems may each produce valid decisions under their own governance conditions while still lacking a valid basis for evaluating those decisions together.
A decision can be valid inside the governance conditions that produced it. That internal validity does not, by itself, establish a comparison basis with a decision produced under another set of governance conditions.
Comparison basis
Comparison basis is not another name for Cross-System Decision Comparability. The term asks whether a comparison basis exists. Comparison basis refers to the structural conditions whose presence or absence is being determined.
As used here, those conditions must hold before two governance decisions can be validly admitted for comparison for the declared object, scope, and time state.
Admission and outcome are different. A comparison determination first establishes whether a comparison basis is available under the current implementation. If no shared basis is detected, the determination is FORMALLY_INCOMPARABLE. If a basis is detected, the comparison can proceed to an EQUIVALENT or NON_EQUIVALENT determination. Detecting a basis does not predetermine which of those outcomes follows.
Before that comparison determination, a judgment must be sufficiently constituted and reconstructable to be a comparison candidate. Decifact treats this as a pre-comparability readiness boundary. This readiness stage is specification-only and is not yet enforced by the current Phase 1 implementation. Readiness is not comparison determination. A judgment held at this boundary has not yet received EQUIVALENT, NON_EQUIVALENT, or FORMALLY_INCOMPARABLE.
Under the current Phase 1 implementation, Decifact checks whether the compared records share the governance reference used as the comparison-basis proxy. That proxy is the current implementation’s test for a shared basis. It is not a statement that no other comparison or translation mechanism could establish a basis.
Outcomes
Under the current implementation, a comparison determination returns one of three outcomes.
EQUIVALENT. A comparison basis is detected under the current implementation, and the compared governance conditions are equivalent within the declared scope.
NON_EQUIVALENT. A comparison basis is detected under the current implementation, but the compared governance conditions or determinations differ within the declared scope. This is a genuine difference, not merely a missing basis.
FORMALLY_INCOMPARABLE. No shared comparison basis detected under the current Phase 1 policy_reference-equality proxy. Not a disagreement. A structural finding — not proof that no broader comparison or translation mechanism could establish one.
FORMALLY_INCOMPARABLE is not an error. It is a first-class governance result.
What this is not
The distinctions below keep this term from being read as a neighboring kind of comparison or coordination. They do not describe adoption or demand.
- AI model comparison compares models. Cross-System Decision Comparability asks whether a comparison basis exists across independently governed judgments.
- Output comparison compares outputs. Decisions are not compared directly here. The question is whether the conditions that made those judgments meaningful supply a comparison basis.
- Conflict resolution decides which side prevails. This term does not determine which system is correct. FORMALLY_INCOMPARABLE is not a disagreement.
- Consensus tooling seeks agreement. NON_EQUIVALENT can stand as a genuine difference under a detected basis. This term does not produce agreement.
- Orchestration coordinates systems so that they act together. This term asks the comparison-basis question before anything depends on coordination. It does not orchestrate either system.
- Interoperability concerns whether systems can exchange or operate together. The ability to exchange messages, or to share infrastructure, does not establish a comparison basis.
- Governance equivalence concerns framework-level alignment and recognition between distinct governance frameworks. It is a different question from whether specific decisions share a comparison basis.
- Policy comparison compares policies or frameworks as policies. This term asks whether independently governed judgments have a comparison basis. It does not treat policy texts as the comparison outcome.
Boundaries
Decifact does not govern either system.
- Does not transfer authority between systems
- Does not determine which system is correct
- Does not determine whether another party is authorized to rely on a comparison result
- Does not replace runtime enforcement
- Does not require systems to share infrastructure
- Does not sit inside either system
What comparability cannot determine:
- Whether either decision is correct — two decisions can be comparable and both wrong
- Whether a system's behavior conforms to its own declarations — that's a claim-vs-conduct question, not a claim-vs-claim question
- Whether the governing definitions, evidence thresholds, authority conditions, or relevant time state remain current after the comparison was performed
- Whether a decision or its governance conditions can be independently reconstructed later
- Whether a decision should be executed — a decision can be comparable and still be inadmissible
Governance equivalence is a different question
Governance equivalence concerns framework-level alignment and recognition between distinct governance frameworks.
Cross-System Decision Comparability asks whether a comparison basis exists across independently governed judgments. That question is about specific decisions, for the declared object, scope, and time state.
Systems can satisfy equivalence criteria and still face decision pairs that lack a common evaluative foundation. Framework equivalence may inform a comparison basis, but it does not constitute one automatically.
Governance equivalence vs cross-system decision comparability
Research distinctions
The research pages keep the technical distinctions inside this terminology. Governance comparability, decision equivalence, and formal incomparability remain those distinctions. Governed decision comparability and comparison basis remain supporting terms.
Governance comparability asks whether the governance conditions of two systems make their decisions comparable. That is distinct from whether the determinations themselves are equivalent.
Decision equivalence asks whether two determinations are equivalent under a valid comparison basis evaluated by the current implementation. Equivalence is one possible result. Other outcomes include NON_EQUIVALENT and FORMALLY_INCOMPARABLE.
The outcome statements above, including the Phase 1 proxy and the limit on what FORMALLY_INCOMPARABLE shows, are the statements to use for formal incomparability. The research glossary keeps the shorter technical entry and does not replace those limits.