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redhat-documentation / supplementary-style-guide

This project maintains the Red Hat supplementary style guide for product documentation that supplements the IBM Style guide
https://redhat-documentation.github.io/supplementary-style-guide/
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Add clarification for what we mean by "supported" in the tech docs #493

Open bburt-rh opened 4 days ago

bburt-rh commented 4 days ago

Per a recent discussion in the CCS channel in the RH company Slack, it became clear that RH technical docs use the word "supported" in at least two different senses that might lead to confusion for users and customers.

In Slack, @bredamc summed up the issue best when she said that "You also have to be careful about distinguishing between what the product does not support (that is, not technically possible) and what Red Hat does not support (that is, might be technically possible but RH doesn't support you doing it".

We often use "supported/not supported" in our docs for both of these meanings. Unfortunately, users tend to conflate the two meanings. Users will assume that if we say that a feature is "supported" (meaning that "technically, it will work") that RH will also provide technical support for that feature, which, as @jseseCCS noted in the same Slack thread, is not always true.

I am raising this issue to propose that we add a glossary entry for the word "supported" with information about how to use the term in ways that are not potentially confusing to users/customers.

dfitzmau commented 4 days ago

Might be useful: https://access.redhat.com/support/offerings/production/soc