It seems to me that that interpretation was rather optimistic (and easily falsifiable using the provided reproduction steps): horizon:~$ rm -f bbcbasic.html; pandoc -f man -s -o bbcbasic.html /tmp/minimal_nroff2.1 ; echo exit status $?; ls -l bbcbasic.html Unknown reader: man exit status 1 /bin/ls: cannot access 'bbcbasic.html': No such file or directory Please reconsider the severity change.