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Revise topics/decision_trees for Decision Tables

Open ahouseholder opened this issue 3 months ago • 1 comments

https://certcc.github.io/SSVC/topics/decision_trees/

In this page, the content is actually about decision trees (operations research), so most of it probably doesn't need to change. We should consider adding an explanation in an admonition box that says something about our shift from "decision tree" to "decision table" terminology, and that decision tables can be represented as tree diagrams, so it's just a terminology change to avoid confusion between decision tree (operations research) and decision tree (machine learning).

ahouseholder avatar Oct 01 '25 19:10 ahouseholder

Image How's this as a start to an admonition box? I'm open to changing the rest of the content from H2 Representation Choices. I'm also open to hyperlinking the wikipedia entry for decision table.

sei-renae avatar Nov 03 '25 18:11 sei-renae

Assuming we're leaving the bulk of the content intact, the note should say something like:


About the term “decision tree”

In machine learning, a decision tree usually refers to a model learned from data through statistical analysis. That’s not what SSVC uses the term for. In the original SSVC documentation, decision tree referred to the operations-research concept: a hand-crafted structure that encodes deliberate choices, not a model inferred from datasets.

Starting in SSVC v2025.9, we shifted to the term decision table to avoid confusion with the ML meaning. A decision table can be rendered as a decision tree, so nothing changes in the underlying logic. The change simply clarifies that SSVC models are human-constructed, risk-focused tools built from stakeholder reasoning—not products of large-scale data analysis.


Optionally link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_table if folks want to learn more about the subtlety.

Tech note: you can do titles in admonition boxes by putting a string in quotes like !!! note "Box Title", which I'd suggest here rather than just leaving the "Note" default title.

ahouseholder avatar Nov 17 '25 17:11 ahouseholder

That is a very large note

sei-renae avatar Nov 21 '25 14:11 sei-renae