[jfkw]

From the article "... To make GitLab better faster, we need more data on how users are using GitLab. SaaS telemetry products, which provide analytics on user behavior inside web-based applications, have come a long way in the past few years. They are an important tool for rapidly improving user experiences because you can understand what users are doing (or not doing) in the app. GitLab has a lot of features, and a lot of users, and it is time that we use telemetry to get the data we need for our product managers to improve the experience."

This doesn't seem like a sufficiently good justification add telemetry features which some users may find objectionable.

Perhaps those resources would be better spent on a feature that let the user who is annoyed by a slow operation to:

- Begin recording user interaction telemetry locally - Perform the slow or buggy operation - Stop recording, generating a data bundle file. - Allow the user to review the data bundle in human-readable format - Optionally take the data bundle to a less secured system as needed - Submit the data bundle to GitLab engineering as a well-filed issue

Done that way, I think most users would welcome the interaction with Gitlab. For telemetry, not so much.

[kazlock]

I'm not arguing for or against tracking, but I disagree with some of these assumptions:

1) 99% of users who have a bad experience are not going to be bothered to figure out how to record, review, and submit their session for the benefit of the service provider. If a page has issues loading, they're just going to give up and move on to the next thing.

2) User tracking isn't really related to performance in the first place. If some server side operation is failing or taking a long time to load, engineers will find out (and probably get paged) with user-agnostic internal performance metrics.

3) User tracking isn't just about finding out what's broken with the site, its about understanding how the site is being used in general so that you can validate your assumptions and make product decisions backed by data.

[codedokode]

> If a page has issues loading, they're just going to give up and move on to the next thing.

It means that they are fine with these issues and don't need to have them fixed.

[TeMPOraL]

Telemetry is a lazy, paternalistic way of improving user experience. It's a method that lets you ignore the actual feedback you're getting from your users, because that involves dealing with actual human beings - who don't always write politely or coherently. Telemetry lets you avoid collecting feedback in a way that respects the user - through in-house studies, by contracting with outside users to perform on-site studies, and just by asking people and reading what they say (and treating it seriously).

GitLab, you're not a cut-throat company run by the Ferengi, desperate to eke out a tiny bit of extra profit by whatever means necessary. You have what it takes to do it right and set an example for others.

[hvidgaard]

That is simply not true. Both matter, but telemetry is something you can trust far more than user feedback. Want to know how much a functionality is used, or how long a user spends doing a particular action - telemetry is the answer.

Compared to direct user feedback where a user might use some functionality twice a year, but rank it high as something that needs to be improved because it's sort of backwards. Instead of improving the performance and flow of the functionality they use hundreds of times daily, because they're reasonably happy with how it works. It's not that you don't want to fix the former, but it's obviously not business critical to perform often, and it's not considered high priority yet.

[rkagerer]

You don't need telemetry or telepathy to hear the chorus of users screaming at the top of their lungs where to shove your telemetry feature.

[jkdufair]

That sounds like recipe for near-zero participation. I think both the intent and execution are spot-on here for GitLab. They are offering a very straightforward option for using GitLab, telemetry-free.

[emilycook]

Hello! Thanks for the feedback, we opened an issue here that might help clear some of this up: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/growth/product/issues/164