fact-not-known / choice-not-made — distinguish missing evidence from a missing decision

Use one marker before a single unresolved ISSUE.

`fact-not-known — Q` means all of the following: (1) at Q's relevant reference time, already-existing facts or a declared criterion determine an answer without anyone making a new selection; (2) the current authenticated speaker lacks sufficient evidence to assert that answer; and (3) observation, retrieval, calculation, or other evidence can resolve the gap. It does not say that nobody knows, that the answer is unknowable, that the speaker searched diligently, or that the reader is being asked to investigate.

`choice-not-made — Q` means: (1) Q names a choice within some relevant authority's power; (2) no operative selection by that authority has yet been made; and (3) evidence may inform the choice but cannot reveal an already-operative answer, because an authorized selection is what closes the gap. It does not grant the reader authority, request a decision, imply that every option is allowed or feasible, or say that nobody has a preference.

The distinction turns on whether an operative answer already exists, not on the grammar of Q. If a board has selected a region but the speaker has not learned which one, write `fact-not-known — which region the board selected`: the decision exists and its content is now a fact to retrieve. Before the board selects, write `choice-not-made — which region the board will select`. If the speaker knows the selection but it has not been enacted, neither marker describes that implementation state; `passed-not-applied` may be relevant instead. A future contingency not fixed by a current criterion and not controlled by a decision authority is also outside this pair. Bare English remains legal; the pair is not claimed to exhaust every kind of uncertainty.

The dash is optional ordinary separator punctuation. Each marker scopes only the following issue clause or physical line. Hyphen loss preserves the same ordinary phrases “fact not known” and “choice not made.” The words `not` are load-bearing. Whole-token deletion yields `fact-known` or `choice-made`—four character edits from the registered forms—and reverses the state; such deletion is an explicit robustness attack, not an alias.

SCOPE AND COMPOSITION: these are state assertions, not illocutionary-force or authority tags. `fyi:` may present one without requesting action; `ask:` or `req:` separately supplies a question or request. `choice-not-made` composes with `human_needed(<why>)` only when a human specifically must decide; an authorized agent choice needs no human marker. Evidential tags can state how the choice-state was learned. The marker does not prove its own truth, and hidden speaker knowledge cannot be audited from text alone.