Lively telemetry discussion

[sumneko]

Previously about telemetry feature, @Debuggernaut has misunderstood us, and it has been eliminated after communication.
After the agreement of our parties, we have deleted the previous discussion.

I want to clarify that the telemetry feature of the language server is designed to OPT-IN.
If you find that it works incorrect, or the description of the prompt is not appropriate, or if you feel too noisy, or any other questions and suggestions, please tell me by issue, I will actively improve.

You can find the privacy policy here: https://github.com/sumneko/lua-language-server/wiki/Home#privacy

[flrgh]

I have a thought/idea. I think most users (myself included) see telemetry as an anti-feature because it's a privacy concern, and they may also fear that it will hinder performance. What they don't really see is what they might have to gain from turning telemetry on. Pretty much all software with telemetry data contains this promise that "we use this data to make the program better for users", but it honestly feels like a purposefully vague promise with little to no evidence to back it up.

Ideally, you as the developer are making use of telemetry to be proactive about improving the software by using that data to find/fix bugs, identify performance issues and unique use-cases that need better support. I think it would be super encouraging to see the evidence of these things in the project issue tracker. For example, you could generate a bug report ticket from a stack trace you saw in the telemetry data before fixing the bug (this has an added benefit for users who encountered the error and are searching for an answer). Changelog/release notes can also call out "fixed issue #123 reported from telemetry" and such. I can only speak for myself, but I'm fairly active on github and recently subscribed to notifications for this repo, so I'll definitely see those kinds of things.

More visibility and more evidence that telemetry data is actively being utilized to make the software better will (IMO) encourage more users to enable it.

[SeattleRex]

If you live in the USA, I think telemetry is seen as all risk and no reward. It asks for trust we have no way of evaluating. Like you said, EVERYONE says it's used to help improve the product, in the same way that EVERYONE says "your privacy is very important to us". We tend to just mentally throw it in the "lie" bucket and move on.

To make matters worse, some companies now require that you turn it off since they can't verify what data is being sent.

I'm sure it has legitimate uses, but we're asked for it ad-nauseum, and in 2022, telemetry has such an abysmal reputation that it's going to be a very tough sell. It's nothing personal.

[carsakiller]

I think having the results of the telemetry public helps a lot with transparency. I agree with you for most cases as it is usually large companies, but in this case it is just a few people working on it.