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   Ellie Huxtable (ellie@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 22:25:06 JST Ellie Huxtable

   touchy subject! but does anyone have any examples of telemetry in open source projects that has been done well?

   success criteria:

   1. allow the project to allocate time to things people actually use
   2. identify issues people may have, as not everyone files issues or can effectively report a bug
   3. preserves privacy + anonymity, and isn't creepy

   eg right now I'd love to know what config/features people actually use, so I can stop maintaining what isn't necessary

   • Embed this notice
     vv221 (vv221@fediverse.dotslashplay.it)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Mar-2024 06:16:08 JST vv221

     in reply to
     1. No telemetry. Hope that people report things accurately
     2. Opt-in telemetry. Hope that enough people opt in to give something statistically accurate
     These are the only options if you do not want to treat your users as a commodity. Only despicable companies and individuals use opt-out telemetry.
     Issues with (1) and (2) are that only those who are positively engaged + more technical are likely to opt in or report.
     Is that a real problem? With my software, I actually want to get the feedback from the people that are engaged with it the most.
     
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Ellie Huxtable (ellie@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Mar-2024 06:16:09 JST Ellie Huxtable

     in reply to

     there's three options I see

     1. No telemetry. Hope that people report things accurately
     2. Opt-in telemetry. Hope that enough people opt in to give something statistically accurate
     3. Opt-out telemetry. Gives the most data, but can be pretty creepy

     Issues with (1) and (2) are that only those who are positively engaged + more technical are likely to opt in or report.

     Issues with (3) have been widely discussed all over already

   • Embed this notice
     Nik (nikclayton@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Mar-2024 06:16:55 JST Nik

     in reply to

     • vv221

     @vv221 @ellie that's not a very nuanced take. For example, today I found myself writing code to migrate between different internal storage formats in an app, as the format has changed across versions.

     Eventually no one is going to be using the old version, and that code is technical debt that can be deleted.

     But without telemetry that reports back the version of the app in use it's impossible to know when it's safe to do so.

   • Embed this notice
     vv221 (vv221@fediverse.dotslashplay.it)'s status on Wednesday, 13-Mar-2024 06:16:55 JST vv221

     in reply to

     • Nik
     that's not a very nuanced take.
     I never pretended to propose a nuanced take ;)
     But without telemetry that reports back the version of the app in use it's impossible to know when it's safe to do so.
     You can communicate with your users. This is what I do with my own software, and it has been working very well for the last 10 years.
     
     If some users were bothered by that, none were bothered enough to actually tell me about it.
     
     CC: @ellie@hachyderm.io
     
     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.