5 ms·

Telemetry seems to be a sore and curt topic with Microsoft. I've yet to see anyone make headway on even just having a discussion about it with public facing MS

Telemetry seems to be a sore and curt topic with Microsoft. I've yet to see anyone make headway on even just having a discussion about it with public facing MS devs; it almost always gets a quick, rote toe-the-line response and the discussion gets terminated or blackballed or ignored thereafter. It has the airs of an internal mandate. I can't help but be deeply suspicious of this behaviour.

nojito 6y ago
Because the word telemetry has been bastardized by the online justice warrior community. People post on HN all the time at how software sucks and never improves....but how can a developer learn how their software is being used without being swayed by the vocal minority?
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  You've given a defence of telemetry. You haven't given a defence for Microsoft's lack of openness, or for the lack of user choice.
- dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
  You make it a binary choice, whereas it's very simple: you can make the dafaults you like, but then you should also offer an option to opt out, clearly explaining what it does and why, and you should respect the choice of your customer throughout subsequent updates. This is what being decent means. Most people will just accept the defaults, so why piss the rest off?
- ManlyBread 6y ago
  You can make telemetry opt-in and ask for consent at the moment of the installation. Microsoft refused to make it optional and lost the trust of millions of users worldwide, all while doing nothing to actually make Windows 10 suck less.
- m0xte 6y ago
  No. I hope this burns to read. Software never improves because incompetence is the norm. Not because we didn't have a magical data collection unicorn available. Competent software companies ran user panels, had decent quality control, didn't steamroll their communities, didn't market loudly over user dissent and certainly didn't shut down their issue tracking to even their top tier partners. That was Microsoft 10 years ago. That is Microsoft today. But you know, Telemetry solves all these problems doesn't it? No The real answer to your question: ask and listen. People will gladly tell you. Do not just take the data otherwise you end up with a set of poorly selected metrics which do not represent user opinion and a lot of pissed off customers who don't want to or can't tell you due to legislation and data protection.
- zajio1am 6y ago
  Make it opt-in. If not enough people opted-in, then offer (financial) compensation.
m0xte 6y ago
This. The whole dotnet core telemetry ticket was a complete shit show which pretty much outlines the developer community are merely subjects. https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/6145 https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/6145
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
Given the amount of shitstorm it generates agains MS, I bet it's Nadella himself who is behind it, obstinately refusing to give up.
floatingatoll 6y ago
Based on the quality of today's conversation here on HN, I'm not inclined to fault them for taking that approach publicly. We can't even discuss this topic coherently ourselves. Our discussion here is filled with "this is my position" statements that are presented as arguments contradicting another's position. I think this post here today serves only as a rallying cry for "no telemetry" extremists and contributes nothing interesting or curious or relevant to HN that hasn't been covered in hundreds of framing-implied or framing-explicit "telemetry is bad" posts prior.
- catalogia 6y ago
  > Based on the quality of today's conversation here on HN, I'm not inclined to fault them for taking that approach publicly. Oh yeah sure, Microsoft is the victim, cyberbullied by their own users. It's a classic case of innocent naive corporations getting senselessly dogpiled by mean common people, clearly that's the way this power dynamic is arranged. Yeah, fucking right.
  - floatingatoll 6y ago
    For example.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      Aww, did I hurt the corporation's feelings? PR departments have cooped the rhetoric of antibullying campaigns meant to protect children in order to shield corporations from well deserved criticism from people that have even less power against the corporation than a child has against an adult. It's horseshit.
- vetinari 6y ago
  Surprisingly, multiple, different people in a public forum do not have single, unified opinion. Unlike people acting on mandate given from above. Your name calling the position you don't agree with does not help the calm and rational discussion.
- 6y ago
bradford 6y ago
I've tried having this conversation, you're right. Making headway is really hard and one of the primary reasons is that the topic is very complicated. There are many employees at MS who deal with those complexities as a full time job. MS Devs who do venture to discuss it are aware of the complexities and tread very cautiously: any slight misphrase has bad outcomes. Smarter participants in the conversation will merely point you to Microsoft's public facing privacy statement, which is such broad legalese that it's not entirely helpful to the analytically minded individual that wants to learn more. That said, I've worked with diagnostic data for several years now and I've never seen anything to justify the hatred that MS gets over this. I've been on teams that have spent a lot of effort ensuring that any data is gathered, stored, and used in a respectful and legal manner. I've seen mistakes, but they are disclosed and remedied as part of the business process. [disclaimer, MS employee, my employer wants me to state that this is my opinion and not Microsoft's]
- ptx 6y ago
  But there's a solution that's neither complicated nor complex, greatly reduces the effort required in the areas mentioned and virtually eliminates those mistakes: don't collect data from my machine. This solution has been successfully used before, even by Microsoft themselves! Note that you can still collect crash dumps and usage data (at the risk of reintroducing some of the problems solved by not collecting other people's data) if you just ask nicely (and clearly) and the user decides to allow it. Office and .NET used to do this.

nojito 6y ago

Because the word telemetry has been bastardized by the online justice warrior community. People post on HN all the time at how software sucks and never improves....but how can a developer learn how their software is being used without being swayed by the vocal minority?

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
You've given a defence of telemetry. You haven't given a defence for Microsoft's lack of openness, or for the lack of user choice.
dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago
You make it a binary choice, whereas it's very simple: you can make the dafaults you like, but then you should also offer an option to opt out, clearly explaining what it does and why, and you should respect the choice of your customer throughout subsequent updates. This is what being decent means. Most people will just accept the defaults, so why piss the rest off?
ManlyBread 6y ago
You can make telemetry opt-in and ask for consent at the moment of the installation. Microsoft refused to make it optional and lost the trust of millions of users worldwide, all while doing nothing to actually make Windows 10 suck less.
m0xte 6y ago
No. I hope this burns to read. Software never improves because incompetence is the norm. Not because we didn't have a magical data collection unicorn available. Competent software companies ran user panels, had decent quality control, didn't steamroll their communities, didn't market loudly over user dissent and certainly didn't shut down their issue tracking to even their top tier partners. That was Microsoft 10 years ago. That is Microsoft today. But you know, Telemetry solves all these problems doesn't it? No The real answer to your question: ask and listen. People will gladly tell you. Do not just take the data otherwise you end up with a set of poorly selected metrics which do not represent user opinion and a lot of pissed off customers who don't want to or can't tell you due to legislation and data protection.
zajio1am 6y ago
Make it opt-in. If not enough people opted-in, then offer (financial) compensation.

m0xte 6y ago

This. The whole dotnet core telemetry ticket was a complete shit show which pretty much outlines the developer community are merely subjects. https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/6145 https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/6145

dvfjsdhgfv 6y ago

Given the amount of shitstorm it generates agains MS, I bet it's Nadella himself who is behind it, obstinately refusing to give up.

floatingatoll 6y ago

Based on the quality of today's conversation here on HN, I'm not inclined to fault them for taking that approach publicly. We can't even discuss this topic coherently ourselves. Our discussion here is filled with "this is my position" statements that are presented as arguments contradicting another's position. I think this post here today serves only as a rallying cry for "no telemetry" extremists and contributes nothing interesting or curious or relevant to HN that hasn't been covered in hundreds of framing-implied or framing-explicit "telemetry is bad" posts prior.

catalogia 6y ago
> Based on the quality of today's conversation here on HN, I'm not inclined to fault them for taking that approach publicly. Oh yeah sure, Microsoft is the victim, cyberbullied by their own users. It's a classic case of innocent naive corporations getting senselessly dogpiled by mean common people, clearly that's the way this power dynamic is arranged. Yeah, fucking right.
- floatingatoll 6y ago
  For example.
  - catalogia 6y ago
    Aww, did I hurt the corporation's feelings? PR departments have cooped the rhetoric of antibullying campaigns meant to protect children in order to shield corporations from well deserved criticism from people that have even less power against the corporation than a child has against an adult. It's horseshit.
vetinari 6y ago
Surprisingly, multiple, different people in a public forum do not have single, unified opinion. Unlike people acting on mandate given from above. Your name calling the position you don't agree with does not help the calm and rational discussion.
6y ago

bradford 6y ago

I've tried having this conversation, you're right. Making headway is really hard and one of the primary reasons is that the topic is very complicated. There are many employees at MS who deal with those complexities as a full time job. MS Devs who do venture to discuss it are aware of the complexities and tread very cautiously: any slight misphrase has bad outcomes. Smarter participants in the conversation will merely point you to Microsoft's public facing privacy statement, which is such broad legalese that it's not entirely helpful to the analytically minded individual that wants to learn more. That said, I've worked with diagnostic data for several years now and I've never seen anything to justify the hatred that MS gets over this. I've been on teams that have spent a lot of effort ensuring that any data is gathered, stored, and used in a respectful and legal manner. I've seen mistakes, but they are disclosed and remedied as part of the business process. [disclaimer, MS employee, my employer wants me to state that this is my opinion and not Microsoft's]

ptx 6y ago
But there's a solution that's neither complicated nor complex, greatly reduces the effort required in the areas mentioned and virtually eliminates those mistakes: don't collect data from my machine. This solution has been successfully used before, even by Microsoft themselves! Note that you can still collect crash dumps and usage data (at the risk of reintroducing some of the problems solved by not collecting other people's data) if you just ask nicely (and clearly) and the user decides to allow it. Office and .NET used to do this.