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Re: negative doc ("Don't do this or bad stuff will happen")
Subject:Re: negative doc ("Don't do this or bad stuff will happen") From:Roy Jacobsen <rjacobse -at- GPS -dot- COM> Date:Thu, 13 Nov 1997 10:10:20 -0600
Actually, Melissa, you got it almost right. It was a brick of grape
juice concentrate, and the <fe>warning</fe> was more like: "This
concentrate is intended to produce a grape beverage only. Do not add
yeast to this and allow it to ferment. That would produce wine, which is
illegal."
To the point of this thread: Acting in good faith, we put in warnings
into documentation to prevent people from causing anything ranging from
inconvenient situations to bodily harm and death. If we leave out the
warnings about things we know are possible, then we're likely to be held
legally liable for the ensuing damage. The problem is, an unscrupulous
(or simply unhinged) individual can use those good-faith warnings as a
recipe for disaster, and I don't think there's much we can do to prevent
such usage. The problem is not with the information. The problem is in
the heart of the user. No matter what we do to change the format,
wording, presentation, etc. of the information, we can't change the
heart of the user.
>Tim Altom <taltom -at- IQUEST -dot- NET> wrote:
>
>> I know that over the years I've had to put in safety messages that
>could, if taken out of context by an unscrupulous rogue, be used as a
>recipe for destruction. For example, saying "Mixing these two
>chemicals could result in an explosion, toxic gas, and attendant death
>of bystanders" is just another way of telling a would-be terrorist
>"Mix these, stand well back, and enjoy the fun".
>
>On a lighter note, there is a story (probably apocryphal) about
>something called a "wine brick," manufactured during Prohibition. The
>story goes that the brick came with directions reading something like
>this:
>
>"Be very careful not to chip off a piece of this brick and mix it with
>water. If you did, you would be making wine, and that would be
>illegal."
>
>Business boomed. But hey, it's just a story.
>
>Melissa Hunter-Kilmer
>mhunterk -at- bna -dot- com
>(standard disclaimer)
