Squad, please clarify your official stance on the ModStatistics controvery.

[Sky_walker]

I solved this issue, by removing the modstatitics folder all .dlls associated with it, and removing Kethane and any mod created by Majiir till it is removed or created with a better more visable opt-in option. I will not be endorcing anything made by Majiir until this happens.

Don't try to make it personal when noone does.

I don't care who the guy that made it is or how much good or bad he made to the community. It's about this one very specific mod (and the other mods that attach it), not the author if it.

I don't see what the big deal is. It just collects data about mods and crash reports, etc.

Collects data on a 3rd party server with no clear notification to the user nor in-game option to either: opt-in or opt-out.

Every half-decent company ASKS you if you'd allow them to gather data like that. This guy isn't a company, never the less: decency should still be applicable.

[Ippo]

I'll just drop this here, and never come back.

I just want to let everybody know that there are two separate merge requests to improve the code in order to address the issue.

We will know what Majiir thinks of the issue when he comes back online to discuss those merge requests. Timezones are problematic, but I imagine we'll have his opinion on them in 24 hours.

[xEvilReeperx]

You might have not been following this situation since it first began a month and a half ago, but the reason Majiir didn't include it as an option to begin with is that it is a deliberate tactic to increase user count. We know what he thinks about it. The only question is whether there's been enough community backlash yet to force him to fix the issue or if he'll continue to stand on his mountain

[Ippo]

Actually, if you check the thread I've been a proponent of opt-in since the very beginning.

[xEvilReeperx]

That has nothing to do with my comment. You phrased your post like we somehow don't know what Majiir's stance is. We do know and tried to convince him differently more than a month ago. If you submitted your merge request two weeks ago, Majiir wouldn't have bothered to respond let alone accept them (or implement similar himself). Now he might be forced to do both. That is all I was saying.

[FleshJeb]

I just want to note my displeasure with ModStatistics in its current form. "Opt-out" should just NOT be done--It's a sore point with enough people that programmers SHOULD know better. I'm sure that Maijir, et al are decent folks with the best of intentions, but the situation as it stands is unacceptable, and I'm very disappointed. (Honestly, I'm [expletive-deleted] pissed, but I have to give these guys the benefit of the doubt.)

If it were packaged as a separate mod, I would ABSOLUTELY install it and let it report statistics back. It's a great idea, but the execution was poor.

Alternately, having a pop-up in-game, asking for permission to send statistics back, would work for me.

I'd really like Squad to have a policy in place against "opt-out" tracking in mods. I'm looking forward to their policy statement on this. I'm constantly recommending that my friends buy KSP, but Squad's stance on this is going to be a deciding factor in whether or not I continue to do so.

[rtxoff]

If i would be Majiir, i would remove all the work that i did for this community and forbid further use of my code immediately.

So much unthankfullness in this community, it stinks and all of this on the back of Majiir.

You guys just don't deserve mods like Kethane. It's not like the difference of opt-in or out will kill anybody.

[The Jedi Master]

Let me repeat, because clearly no one listened the first time.

"Hey! Someone used your mod!"

That's the extent of it, people.

[chrt]

*sigh*. People making something out of nothing. Why must you care about this? It is only sending data about mods. Not where you live, account passwords and the such. So what if a modder wants to include it? They get data about their mod. And see if their mod conflicts with others. It helps you in the end, because your game will be more stable with mods.

It sends information about my PC use that is otherwise private, with a unique, persistent identifier (ie, not "anonymous"), in plaintext, to some guy. Similar to your surprise at the fact that people are worrying about this, I'm surprised that people are ok with this.

[Red Iron Crown]

It is difficult to put into words how little I care about the data this plugin collects. I honestly see no risk whatsoever in collecting any and all data from my KSP game. The only exception is my store account username/password, which the game never sees, only the launcher if I use the update functionality. I let Squad collect data, I would let Majiir's mod collect it (not sure offhand if any of the mods I use come with it and don't really care enough to check). If it helps make KSP or the mods for it better then I'm all for it.

Just have a look at any of the popular mod threads and you'll see this scenario happens all the time:

Poster: This mod doesn't work.

Modder: How so? What version are you using? What other mods do you use?

Poster: It makes KSP crash. I'm using the latest version. I have many other mods, but they're not the problem. Please fix this.

Modder: When you say latest version, do you mean from the OP or the dev version? What version number is it? Some mods are incompatible with this one, please give me your list. Can you share your log?

Poster: It worked yesterday and now it doesn't, please fix it.

And so on.

Modders are fairly desperate for information to make their mods work well, especially with other mods. No modder has the time or resources to test their mod with every permutation of installed mods, it's just not feasible. Automated data collection of crash dumps gives modders some insight into what problems exist and with which particular mod combinations, information that is incredibly hard to gather otherwise.

If the plugin came from some new community member with no history here then I might be a bit hesitant, though even then it would be auditable via source code and it wouldn't have access to any sensitive data anyway. But this is from Majiir, a community member of long and good standing, who has made several of the most popular mods for KSP, who knows better than most the challenges modders face, and who offered to host the community mod repository on his own servers for free. I find it exceptionally difficult to believe that he's twirling his mustache somewhere plotting how he can use all this game play and crash data to ...... I don't know, do something nefarious. If he were truly evil, he would not have included any mechanism at all to opt out.

I don't care about opt-in or opt-out; I would opt-in if required to do so. But I understand both those users who dislike opt-out and the perspective that opt-in would lower participation rates low enough to be useless. Please just take a moment and resist the knee-jerk reaction to data collection and think about what data is being collected, why it is being collected, and who is doing the collecting. The answers to those questions are not malicious or invasive at all.

[xEvilReeperx]

Just have a look at any of the popular mod threads and you'll see this scenario happens all the time:

Poster: This mod doesn't work.

Modder: How so? What version are you using? What other mods do you use?

Poster: It makes KSP crash. I'm using the latest version. I have many other mods, but they're not the problem. Please fix this.

Modder: When you say latest version, do you mean from the OP or the dev version? What version number is it? Some mods are incompatible with this one, please give me your list. Can you share your log?

Poster: It worked yesterday and now it doesn't, please fix it.

And so on.

We tried to convince Majiir to put this kind of functionality into ModStatistics. He said, quote, "I will say it [ed: error reporting] is definitely outside the scope of this project, and it introduces a number of privacy issues" and "It would be neat to have a tool that collects logs and other diagnostic information and compiles it into a single report for a modder to view; but that is not this tool"

So unfortunately, while ModStatistics will tell you how often a mod will crash in general from a pool of users, it does not include any of the interesting info for modders that would be helpful. In your scenario, there's no way to identify Poster, what version he's using, which mods he's using, or anything like that at all.

[Red Iron Crown]

*snip*

Thanks for that clarification, I was misunderstanding the extent of data the tool collects. Does it at least send a mod list when KSP crashes to give some clue about incompatibilities?

[Sandworm]

Thanks for that clarification, I was misunderstanding the extent of data the tool collects. Does it at least send a mod list when KSP crashes to give some clue about incompatibilities?

It does send a list, but that list is "anonymized" and so is not available to mod creators to fix a particular user's problem. It may answer questions such as "does my mod really not work with mac?" but cannot help with "why did this machine crash today?" To get to that question users would have to forward their unique identifiers (in the config file) and Majir would provide mod maintainers with the raw reports. That's too awkward an approach to be useful.

As it is of little use for support, I'm not sure why it lists all mods used rather than only participating mods. I suspect it is attempting to answer the question "Which are the most used mods?", a question beyond simple download counts. I hesitate to speculate as to how mod creators might use such data.

In my toying around with this mod I have figured out various ways to defeat/jam it with false data. Anyone with a little skill could totally disrupt Majir's efforts. A simple packet player would do. I am a little surprised that this hasn't happened already given the anger surrounding the issue.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Sandworm

[Seshins]

I too am in the i dont care basket. If Majir is trying to help the modders - players then so be it.

[Red Iron Crown]

It does send a list, but that list is "anonymized" and so is not available to mod creators to fix a particular user's problem. It may answer questions such as "does my mod really not work with mac?" but cannot help with "why did this machine crash today?"

As it is of little use for support, I'm not sure why it lists all mods used rather than only participating mods. I suspect it is attempting to answer the question "Which are the most used mods?", a question beyond simple download counts. I hesitate to speculate as to how mod creators might use such data.

OK, so it does work the way I initially thought. My little scenario was more about how hard it is to get useful data directly from users, not necessarily about using this plugin's data to provide support directly.

It should list all mods, even those that don't participate. It helps in finding incompatible mods. If someone's mod crashes a lot when another particular mod is installed, that's useful data.

[Majiir]

Hi folks,

I would like to address all your questions and statements individually, but right now I don't have the time. Please see my statement here and watch that thread for updates. I'll ask the moderators to unlock it once I've prepared a detailed response.

I am keeping in close touch with both the KSP forum moderators and members of Squad. We had a conversation yesterday, and we will resume discussion after the weekend. This is an important issue to discuss, but it's not an emergency that should pull Squad away from their well-deserved vacation. I speak frequently with members of Squad about QA, modding policies, legal issues and the game's API. We're all well aware and communicating.

Cheers,

Majiir

[m4v]

I'm disgusted over some users that raise such amount of drama and get threads locked over something so silly and petty that is an opt-in or opt-out of a survey that collects harmless data. Just opt-out and stop getting your panties in a bunch, you're not Snowden and Majiir isn't the NSA.

[Trollsama]

As much as i don't like to replay to posts that are pages back, it was addressed to me and i was at work

In the dev thread for ModStatistics, Majiir stated that he's trying to add a button in the main menu to allow easy opt-out, but that's difficult to do as a modder. It would help to not only show what type of information is collected (currently in the dev thread), but also list all the installed mods that use it. That should ease some concerns about what information is used and demonstrate how important it is to modders.

Would that approach work for you?

I Am mostly just looking for transparency. Asi stated i dont think he was aiming to hide some secret little script to steals ur infos in some diabolical plant to take over KSP. It was, in reality just an oversight or poor decision that led to this mess.

I am perfectly ok with the collection of said information, I just wish there would be some prompt to tell you before hand. so like the first time you install a mod that contains it, A window pops up during launch to just be like "hay, just letting you know im here, and if you want to know more about me, or how to make me go away there is a whole wack of information for you if you go here"

I am far from a developer, I couldnt tell you what the best way to get to that kind of end goal would be. I have just barely enough experience in code to put together some if, or, repeats, and functions in Lua. so i will be the first to admit i have no idea what that means on the development side. But what i do know is the Developer is well up to the task, he is quite talented in what he does and the magic he can work with a keyboard.

TL;DR:

I know a fix will be coming, and i trust the Developer enough to believe it was just an oversight that he is now, really wishing he had not missed

I dont really care how it is fixed, I will just be happy knowing the issue is resolved

[Tenebrais]

My objection to ModStatistics is thus, and I think most of the opponents to it agree with me here.

Majiir's stated reason for having opt-out by default is because, if he made it opt-in, fewer people would allow it, resulting in less data.

Anyone who would not opt in given the prompt obviously does not want their data collected.

It follows, then, that the opt-out system is collecting data from people who do not consent to it. No matter how simple or well-documented the opt-out process is, this fact shows that people either do not know about it or cannot implement it.

If nobody's data is being collected without permission, then the opt-out system is not producing more data than opt-in, and there is no reason not to give a prompt and avoid all of this drama.

Now, there are other objections, yes. Pseudonymised and plain-text data are legal and security liabilities respectively that deserve to be addressed. But both of those come after the issue of consent.

I don't think Majiir has ill intentions. A bit stubborn, perhaps, but not outright trying to harm anyone. Still, in a sense, he is.

I've heard the Majiir is intending to implement a dialog asking permission to send data, and once that happens this whole issue will blow over. Although Squad should still adopt an official position, because if a mod is allowed to be packaged inside another mod, quietly install itself, then collect data about your computer and report it to a server all with nothing more than a line on a mod page of warning then that sets a precedent for far less scrupulous purposes.

[Sandworm]

I Am mostly just looking for transparency. Asi stated i dont think he was aiming to hide some secret little script to steals ur infos in some diabolical plant to take over KSP. It was, in reality just an oversight or poor decision that led to this mess.

Well, the decision to go with opt-out rather than opt-in is always a little sneaky. The decision is made because developers know that many people will participate in an opt-out program who, if asked directly, would not. The principal is the same whether the software is an appstore app, Facebook privacy setting, or a KSP mod.

-snip-

Edited July 21, 2014 by KasperVld

[Temeter]

-snip-

As I can guess, this is out of scope of stock-only players, so I'll assume that there is only mod players\creators in this thread.

We just get a fresh update with fresh bugs. More importantly, we've got a x64 version for Windows (it was our most desired dream!) that turned out to be completely FUBAR.

And instead of comprehensive testing and helping our favorite modders (including Majiir) to squash new bugs (and helping Squad to make damn thing work) you're bitching about how some harmless stats-collecting app invades your precious privacy fortress.

Great priorities you have here, I say.

And we are supposed to cry about things taking time by nature not happening instantly, instead of talking about current issues. Also, the matter is unimportant because you are don't care about the concerns. Ignorancy is always a great argument.

Guys, this is getting silly. How about you calm down? Neither conspiracy's, nor overdefensive nonsense will bring us anywhere. Majiir stated he was - like Squad - aware about the matter and that should be more than enough for now.

Edited July 21, 2014 by KasperVld

[cpast]

Anyone who would not opt in given the prompt obviously does not want their data collected.

This is generally not the case. The vast majority of people generally do not care one way or the other, and just want the dialog to go away. They won't change anything from default settings, because they couldn't care less. Someone accepting a default option never means for sure that they affirmatively prefer that option; it just means they don't care enough to bother reading or changing it. Most people neither opt-out or opt-in, they just opt-default. For those people, the question is "is it ethical to collect their statistics", and the answer is by no means certain, but there is a strong case to be made that if someone doesn't object to statistics collection (i.e. when presented with the choice, they see no reason to choose "no" -- ModStatistics now doesn't present that choice well enough, but opt-out systems can certainly do just that), there's no issue collecting those statistics.

[Climberfx]

I don't really know what to tell you guys, but just to be careful what about you talk here.

This all start with a wrong way to have Squad response. If you all wanna some retrieve from squad, please use the right channels, because here, you only will excite more fights.

I'm almost closing this, so just chill out!

I know all of you can be smart and good persons. That's the way to be.

Cheers.

Edited July 21, 2014 by Climberfx

[cpast]

Out of curiosity, what are the proper channels for something like this? PM Rowsdowser or something?

[Climberfx]

Cpast, the open channel for sure is not.

I would advice you all to do it in a private manner, a good one is to PM Rowsdower like you suggest.

But for this one i think he already see it.

Thank you!