The procedure listed in the sticky for reporting bugs is -
If you discover something that you consider is a bug in Hearts of Iron 2, then do the following.
Write up a detailed instruction of how to reproduce it in an email to
hoi2bugs@paradoxplaza.com with a savegame that helps to reproduce it attached to it. Title the email with BUGREPORT, and it will be filed to the correct persons.
The assumption here is that the problem is with the games programing code and everyone will have the problem regardless of system configuration.
Problems with a company's product are generally addressed in the company's tech support forum, whether they are hardware
or software, but obviously not here.
Since there is a possibility my question is not about a bug in the software, but rather an error in the manual, I don't know if it is a software bug or not. So submitting a bug report is not the right thing to do either according to the sticky threads. And there is nothing in the "General discussion forum" about answering questions regarding game/manual bugs/errors.
So if I follow the procedures as written, the proper course of action would have been for me to do nothing because none of the "rules" cover the question I had.
In the future I will deal directly with Paradox through official channels for non-gameplay issues instead of using the forums.