TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
I'm lucky enough to have a Safety/Regulatory Dude to tell me what to add.
We use CSA for product testing also. CSA tests your product to a certain
standard. For us, it's UL1741. If you can find out the standard CSA is
testing to, you might be able to get a manual that defines the standard.
Also, we received a test report from CSA that provided not only test
results, but excerpts from the UL standard on what needed to be included on
the product (labels) and/or in the docs. Maybe you can get your hands on
that.
Sally
On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 12:36 PM, McLauchlan, Kevin <
Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
> How many of you are your own regulatory-compliance authority?
>
> How do you KNOW that you have enough of the right kinds of statements,
> warnings, and disclaimers in your documents for hardware products?
>
> Somebody just asked me for a sheet of all the warnings and disclaimers that
> I provide for a particular product of ours, that is being proposed for a big
> sale or partnership arrangement in some country somewhere. The person
> requesting the info very obligingly provided a Cisco document as an example
> of what was wanted. The Cisco document (for whatever product of theirs) had
> page after page of NUMBERED statements (each translated into about a dozen
> languages). The numbers went into the high hundreds, but the majority were
> skipped. That is, somebody knew that they needed just twenty three
> statements (starting at 17B and ending at 1079) for that product.
>
> I don't have that.
> I have an FCC statement, an equivalent CSA statement (also in French...),
> the CE logo and some little blurb, and that was about it.
> No problems ever from anyone making noises about "We will punish you for
> not having this-or-that statement" nor about "We'd love to buy from you but
> we can't if you don't have this-or-that statement".
>
> I only accidentally learned that it's a good idea to have a dual power
> supply warning on a product that has redundant power. I saw another
> company's doc for some product of theirs and thought "Jeez! That makes all
> kinds of sense!" So, I included a dual power supply warning (unplugging one
> power supply does not necessarily remove risk of shock; this puppy could
> still be hot) in the document refresh, about six months after our product
> was released. Nobody complained that it was missing from our original
> release. Not our QA or secret shopper. Not any customer (including
> government departments).
>
> I can certainly sniff around the Weeb and find all sorts of statements that
> _could_ be included.
> But it would not be long before we were killing six trees for every unit we
> shipped, just to print the warnings.
>
> A previous, related thread had some people implying that every techwriter
> should be on top of all this stuff and be ready to go to jail or reimburse
> the company for any lawsuits if they miss something, while others thought
> that such responsibility should rightfully lie with the company's legal
> department, or at least a compliance manager/engineer who would merely
> provide a list to the techwriter.
>
> Our own legal beagles have not gotten back to me yet.
>
> If your employer sells hardware, how warm and fuzzy do you feel about the
> amount of litigation teflon you have applied in your docs? Why? What
> justifies that feeling, for you?
>
> - kevin
>
> The information contained in this electronic mail transmission
> may be privileged and confidential, and therefore, protected
> from disclosure. If you have received this communication in
> error, please notify us immediately by replying to this
> message and deleting it from your computer without copying
> or disclosing it.
>
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with
> Doc-To-Help.
> Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
> Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days.
>http://www.doctohelp.com
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as sjd1201 -at- gmail -dot- com -dot-
>
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> or visit
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/sjd1201%40gmail.com
>
>
> To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>
> Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
>http://www.techwr-l.com/ for more resources and info.
>
> Please move off-topic discussions to the Chat list, at:
>http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/listinfo/techwr-l-chat
>
>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Create and publish documentation through multiple channels with Doc-To-Help.
Choose your authoring formats and get any output you may need. Try
Doc-To-Help, now with MS SharePoint integration, free for 30-days. http://www.doctohelp.com
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
