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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

It's not reasonable to see the disclaimer on the website and then conclude the opposite is true.

Right in the middle of the landing page, the site also states 'Our Site Plans are Non-Certified (Read More)' in the same list as their selling points. And their explanation of what this means is simple and to the point: https://www.mysiteplan.com/pages/certified-site-plans

Users of the site are very plainly advised. And if they submit those plans to local authorities or whoever, the people who evaluate them are competent to notice whether or not the plans are signed by a licensed surveyor. I'm not sure who you think is at risk of harm here.

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the disclaimers must be on the digital and physical documents. not everyone who will ever handle them will know their origin, authenticity, or how to validate them.

Everyone who sees them that is expecting certified engineering plans or a surveyor’s plat will know this isn’t that as it won’t have the correct stamp on it. Adding a disclaimer is like writing “this is not a car” on a bicycle.

i wonder if you would notice a dollar bill that had slightly different wording on it, or was missing some words. even though you handle cash every day, even if you're a teller at a bank.

The correct analogy is if your job is to handle cheques and someone hands you an IOU lacking any account number or signature that wasn't even addressed to them or their electric bill.

A drawing of your property boundary so you can know where to mow the lawn to or find a plot of acreage granny left you isn't an engineering or legal document and shouldn't be treated as one.

Yet, people buy mass numbers of bicycle-shaped-objects that they believe to be bicycles. So there might be a good way to apply to the bicycle analogy.

Your example is a poor one, since no reasonable person could confuse those two items.

A reasonable person could confuse the plans produced by the website and legitimate plans produced by a professional surveyor, though.

More to the point, the author of the website seems to disagree with you, since he already includes a disclaimer on the website. The issue raised is that he does not include that same disclaimer on the plans.

GP's phrasing of 'everyone who will ever handle' the plans is the correct phrasing: those are the people that must be considered. That group includes all people whose work and interests require knowing where property boundaries and physical structures are, now, and in the future.

The professional engineering and survey boards have a duty to the protect the public, and a duty to regulate the practice of land surveying and civil engineering. If someone's behavior interferes with that practice, then they have a legitimate cause to prevent that behavior.

If I work in an office that requires plans to be done by a professional surveyor, it's my job to authenticate submissions I receive. If that requirement doesn't exist, then it doesn't matter. Your argument seems to depend on wholly imaginary future victims.

The disclaimer on the website is so buyers know what they're getting and don't waste money on something that isn't adequate for their legal/planning needs.

Office workers approving applications are not the only people who will see these. Users may include (disgruntled) neighbours, and anyone who will at some point need to know what the measurements on a site are to do their job correctly, legally, and/or safely. The possibility for misinterpretation is clear, and the fix is trivial.

Your interpretation of the disclaimer may be correct, but the phrasing "This is not a Legal Survey, nor is it intended to be or replace a Legal Survey." is excessive for that purpose and makes more sense if it's meant to head off complaints from the engineer's association.

Do you think it would be a good idea to make it a legal requirement for (almost) every map produced in the USA to contain a disclaimer? Or perhaps 50 disclaimers because each state might have its own requirements for exactly what needs to be disclaimed? But why stop at maps? Perhaps every kind of document should come with a 100-page booklet of standard disclaimers? That'll stop people from getting confused!

the law may very well be stupid, which is a different discussion.

however, there are plenty of things in civil and structural engineering that carry a huge amount of liability, and do in fact need to be done by a licensed/insured professional. for example, where electrical wiring or sewage pipes are buried. getting a property line wrong, in some cases can be a big problem.

Site/plot plans are not maps...since your remark comes off as arrogantly dismissive of the fundamental difference between explicit dimensioned features and implicit qualitative scale in bad faith.

> It's not reasonable to see the disclaimer on the website and then conclude the opposite is true.

Unless the only context in which anyone will ever view those plans is on that website, I don't see how this is relevant.

I explained this in the third paragraph.

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