RE: Most embarasssing error (was Finding errors in manuals)

["Kevin McGowan" <thatguy_80 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Here's mine...it's a classic that I still bring up whenever I see my old 
co-workers.

We worked on a network management product, and throughout the guides were 
discussions of different "community strings" that allow access to computer 
MIBs yadda yadda yadda.

A generic community string is "public." however, upon the accidental removal 
of the "l"...we had many questions about what these community strings could 
do.

The best part was that when we fixed it, we alerted the company who was 
reselling our product (and rebranding our docs) so they wouldn't suffer the 
embarrassment. Sadly, they never fixed it, and subsequent versions of their 
manuals had the error. :)






>From: "V. Camgros" <camgros -at- mindspring -dot- com>
>Reply-To: "V. Camgros" <camgros -at- mindspring -dot- com>
>To: "Van Boening,Tammy" <tammy -dot- vanboening -at- Fiserv -dot- com>, 
>techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
>Subject: RE: Most embarasssing error (was Finding errors in manuals)
>Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 15:09:14 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
>
>At the risk of flooding the list and annoying the mods, my contributions to 
>the list of shame:
>
>During a walk-through/acceptance test for a military contract technical 
>manual, our Navy captain reviewer took one look at the COVER of a manual 
>and said "I'm afraid I'm just going to have to reject these out of hand."
>
>During the rush to create a cover for a meticulously written manual, one of 
>us had blithely typed "Department of the Army".
>
>Ooops.
>
>Strangely, this second one is another cover. My quality in tech pubs 
>instructor stressed the elusive nature of errors  by telling of a time when 
>one of her (staff's, I think) manuals went out with a 60-point IMB on the 
>cover.
>
>She worked for that large blue mainframe company.
>
>We've all done them. If you say you haven't, you're either fibbing or 
>living on a large river in Egypt!
>
>regards,
>Vickie
>
>-----Original Message-----
> >From: "Van Boening, Tammy" <tammy -dot- vanboening -at- Fiserv -dot- com>
> >Sent: May 17, 2007 2:11 PM
> >To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> >Subject: RE: Most embarasssing error (was Finding errors in manuals)
> >
> >So, I was the author of a hardware manual for a training class for a
> >bunch of truck drivers years ago - seriously, the Hooters T-shirt, let's
> >go to a strip club after work kind - and this made it through in the
> >manual (to my absolute horror and to their absolute delight) -
> >
> >Instead of "tighten the wrench", it was "tighten the wench" - ah yes -
> >that helped break the ice in the class. After something like that, I
> >rarely get heartburn over a typo or two in a manual.
> >
> >TVB
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: techwr-l-bounces+tammy -dot- vanboening=fiserv -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> >[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+tammy -dot- vanboening=fiserv -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
> >On Behalf Of Combs, Richard
> >Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2007 3:00 PM
> >To: Connie Giordano; Michelle Vina-Baltsas; techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> >Subject: RE: Finding errors in manuals
> >
> >Connie Giordano wrote:
> >
> >> I literally just came across this in a manual I'm editing right now:
> >>
> >> "Press <ENTER> to exit:"  Hope that makes you feel better ;-)
> >
> >Well, it sure looks funny, but it's not necessarily _wrong_.
> >
> >After all, we Windows users click Start to quit. ;-)
> >
> >Richard
> >
> >
> >------
> >Richard G. Combs
> >Senior Technical Writer
> >Polycom, Inc.
> >richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
> >303-223-5111
> >------
> >rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> >303-777-0436
> >------
> >
> >
> >
> >
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