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RE: Do you have a big fat "WE DON'T SUPPORT THAT!" disclaimer?
Subject:RE: Do you have a big fat "WE DON'T SUPPORT THAT!" disclaimer? From:"Barbara Philbrick" <caslon -at- alltel -dot- net> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:00:48 -0500
> Has anyone run into this, and as a result inserted some sort of
> disclaimer in the docs saying "If we don't say it works this way,
> don't assume it does"? Would that have any affect, desirable or
> otherwise?
I haven't actually done it, but there are times when I wished more products
did. For example, when a DVD says "RW" on it, I expect it to act like a
regular drive. Instead, I have to dig through Microsoft's technical articles
to find out you can't delete an individual file... you have to delete all of
them.
Personal problems aside, many products do contain specific "we don't do
this" warnings. Look at the side of a ladder for an extreme example.
Although that is taking it too far, if you have a lot of customers (not just
one loud one!) that expect something that ain't so, I would state it.
I think any warning like this needs to be specific to a particular problem.
Telling people not to jump to conclusions and to make good assumptions about
product use seems like a waste of letters. Plus, do you really document
everything (hooray if you do!)? Most documentation I read these days covers
the highlights and seems to expect the readers to figure out the rest.
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