> In the end I abandoned the migration, which I suppose means if they poll community members, they'll have something of an echo chamber.
Harking back to the survivorship-bias example above (reinforce warplanes in the bits that weren't all shot up on the ones that returned), if they define "community" as the users of the new language, they'll never realise line length was a significant problem: You and all the others like you aren't there to answer the question "Was line length in the code converter a problem for you?" with a resounding "Yes!", they'll get only "No" answers, and not realise what a huge impediment it is.
Harking back to the survivorship-bias example above (reinforce warplanes in the bits that weren't all shot up on the ones that returned), if they define "community" as the users of the new language, they'll never realise line length was a significant problem: You and all the others like you aren't there to answer the question "Was line length in the code converter a problem for you?" with a resounding "Yes!", they'll get only "No" answers, and not realise what a huge impediment it is.