Gathering data on user preferences

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com>]

Recent threads on proposed changes to default settings, provision of
configuration profiles, surveying Emacs users etc make me wonder if we
could use ELPA more effectively to gather valuable data on settings of
interest.

My thinking is that we could create an ELPA package which works
in a similar way to report emacs bug (in fact, it could probably
leverage off some of that functionality). Essentially, it would generate a
buffer containing details of variables of interest and their current
setting in a set format which could then be emailed to a data gathering
address. The set format would make it possible to process these messages
via scripts to collate the data.

The idea would be to make it easy for users to submit details about
their current settings which could be used to help inform decisions
regarding default settings.

This would not be meant to replace other data gathering approaches, such
as user surveys which can provide users with an avenue to express their
desires, preferences, issues etc. It would be just another information
source which would be easy for users to provide and easy to process in
an automated manner to provide a basic snapshot of current settings
being used.

It would even be possible to tailor the package for specific areas of
interest by releasing new/updated versions and provide concrete data on
which options people are changing from default values.

Unlike data gathering processes of other systems, as the data is first
written to a buffer, the user has full control over what information is
reported. If they don't want to reveal their setting for some reason,
they can just remove it from the buffer before sending it, plus the data
only gets gathered if and when the user is willing to submit it.

We could then setup scripts to process messages sent to the gathering
email address which maintains a simple database that collates the
responses and provides basic reporting functionality. In time, this
database can also show us how things are evolving over time and possibly
indicate default settings which may need review. If this proved
valuable, we could even consider adding functionality to politely ask
users to submit their data X weeks/months after installing or upgrading
their Emacs.