index.asciidoc in logstash-output-kafka-6.2.4

- old
+ new

@@ -18,31 +18,16 @@
 
 include::{include_path}/plugin_header.asciidoc[]
 
 ==== Description
 
-Write events to a Kafka topic. This uses the Kafka Producer API to write messages to a topic on
-the broker.
+Write events to a Kafka topic. 
 
-Here's a compatibility matrix that shows the Kafka client versions that are compatible with each combination
-of Logstash and the Kafka output plugin: 
+This plugin uses Kafka Client 0.11.0.0. For broker compatibility, see the official https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/Compatibility+Matrix[Kafka compatibility reference].
 
-[options="header"]
-|==========================================================
-|Kafka Client Version |Logstash Version |Plugin Version |Why?
-|0.8       |2.0.0 - 2.x.x   |<3.0.0 |Legacy, 0.8 is still popular 
-|0.9       |2.0.0 - 2.3.x   | 3.x.x |Works with the old Ruby Event API (`event['product']['price'] = 10`)
-|0.9       |2.4.x - 5.x.x   | 4.x.x |Works with the new getter/setter APIs (`event.set('[product][price]', 10)`)
-|0.10.0.x  |2.4.x - 5.x.x   | 5.x.x |Not compatible with the <= 0.9 broker
-|0.10.1.x  |2.4.x - 5.x.x   | 6.x.x |
-|0.11.0.0  |2.4.x - 5.x.x   | 6.2.2 |Not compatible with the <= 0.9 broker
-|==========================================================
+If you're using a plugin version that was released after {version}, see the https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/master/plugins-inputs-kafka.html[latest plugin documentation] for updated information about Kafka compatibility. If you require features not yet available in this plugin (including client version upgrades), please file an issue with details about what you need..
 
-NOTE: We recommended that you use matching Kafka client and broker versions. During upgrades, you should
-upgrade brokers before clients because brokers target backwards compatibility. For example, the 0.9 broker
-is compatible with both the 0.8 consumer and 0.9 consumer APIs, but not the other way around.
-
 This output supports connecting to Kafka over:
 
 * SSL (requires plugin version 3.0.0 or later)
 * Kerberos SASL (requires plugin version 5.1.0 or later)
 
@@ -300,13 +285,20 @@
 
 [id="plugins-{type}s-{plugin}-retries"]
 ===== `retries` 
 
   * Value type is <<number,number>>
-  * Default value is `0`
+  * There is no default value for this setting.
 
-Setting a value greater than zero will cause the client to
-resend any record whose send fails with a potentially transient error.
+The default retry behavior is to retry until successful. To prevent data loss,
+the use of this setting is discouraged.
+
+If you choose to set `retries`, a value greater than zero will cause the
+client to only retry a fixed number of times. This will result in data loss
+if a transport fault exists for longer than your retry count (network outage,
+Kafka down, etc).
+
+A value less than zero is a configuration error.
 
 [id="plugins-{type}s-{plugin}-retry_backoff_ms"]
 ===== `retry_backoff_ms` 
 
   * Value type is <<number,number>>