[AdmiralAsshat]

Then I would suggest changing the wording to just "profile". Whether you realize it or not, the Mormons are a less-than-revered religious minority in many parts of the US, and dropping that fact so early in the article comes across as poisoning the well against him.

There's plenty of reason to be upset with Mr. Holt. His own reply elsewhere in this thread reads more like a PR response than a real reply. But keep the contention on-topic and less like a personal hit.

[mholt]

> His own reply elsewhere in this thread reads more like a PR response than a real reply.

What would you like me to say?

[AdmiralAsshat]

Hello, Matt!

To be clear, I am not a Caddy user and have no horse in this race. I tend to sympathize with the privacy-conscious, however, having been a user who turned off telemetry in Firefox after the Mr. Robot scandal. Let me see if I can explain why your response comes across as tone-deaf:

1) Your first response is "I haven't actually watched the video," which immediately suggests that you're not going to actually engage with the claims so much as tackle a strawman version of the claim. Now perhaps the author is repeating an accusation that he has made in the past, and so you actually are familiar with it already, but that's not how this comes across.

2) Your next response--"Several of us in the research community have agreed that telemetry can be a net good for the Web."--is not really doing anything to assuage the privacy concerns. It's not a technical refutation, and it's not a particularly fleshed-out emotional appeal, either. It's basically, "We disagree."

Put another way, let's imagine for a sec that you were a Tobacco CEO and the following exchange was recorded:

Reporter: Sir, we have a multitude of evidence that smoking is conclusively, irreversibly detrimental to human health.

CEO: Actually, a number of scientists and health officials have agreed that smoking is good.

Do you realize how tone-deaf that non-answer comes across?

3) Your final response is the most "PR" part, as it first advertises the product, then pivots away from the contention at hand in favor of praising how wonderful it is that it's open source and has a vast number of contributors. ---

I've already done the transposition analogy once, so I'm hesitant to do it again lest it look like I'm demonizing you, but I want you to read the below and see how you would perceive this response if it came from the CEO of J.Crew about accusations of child labor in its clothing factories:

  "Hey everyone. James here.

  I haven't actually reviewed the accusations yet because I've been at a conference.

  We believe that allowing underage employees to fill a limited number of positions at 
  are factories allows impoverished families to bring in badly needed revenue, and 
  ultimately serves as a net positive for these needy communities.

  A huge thanks to everyone for shopping at J.Crew and making it the World's Best 
  Clothing Line™ five years and counting!"

---

Hopefully that makes sense. It may not have been your intent, but perception is critical when you're the public face of the company. You can gain or lose a ton of goodwill among your users depending on whether you attempt to receive their criticisms with an open ear and work towards a solution, or dismiss them and dodge around the question. And even if you're doing the former, the mere perception of the latter can be damaging.

Good luck.

[yuhong]

This completely ignores that the definition of open source code is that it can be audited.

[neflabs]

For example, you could say, "Clearly the community feels strongly about this issue, and while I still believe Caddy should include telemetry, it will be opt-in, not the default. Sorry for censoring posts on the Caddy forum, it won't happen again."

[neflabs]

Fair point. Done.