Dead people could be designated authors of Atlassian Confluence docs but that can't be changed
- Reference: 1662438765
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/09/06/atlassian_confluence_feature_request_confcloud_7247/
- Source link:
As explained in the comments on the CONFCLOUD-7247 thread, changing authors matters because users assume the person listed as the creator of a document is the best contact for queries or comments.
One commentor expressed their discomfort with that arrangement as follows:
It's ridiculous to see the picture and name of a person who left the company many years ago in every page. I can even imagine some people having to see the picture of teammates that have passed away during all these years and it breaks my heart. This is unacceptable.
Others point out that when importing content into Confluence, authorship of all the documents sucked into its system is assigned to whoever added the content. That leaves some admins described as the authors of documents they have nothing to do with, and users unsure of who wrote a document.
We can't build everything at once
Which all seems very inconvenient, so we asked Atlassian why the request has not been addressed for 16 years!
"As avid users of our own products, we hear customers in their frustration with a ticket being kept open for 16 years,” an Atlassian spokesperson replied by email, adding: “Following our company value of ‘Open Company, No Bullshit’” we publicly capture our customers' voices and hold ourselves accountable for feedback on products.”
[3]
Just how Atlassian is being accountable in this instance is hard to ascertain because the spokesperson next stated” As with any software product, we can’t build everything at once. Each quarter comes with hard decisions on prioritizing development based on customer impact and effort required to build that functionality.”
[4]
[5]
“While it may seem like a simple change on the surface, the author of a page impacts page properties, notifications, and also has security and compliance considerations,” the spokesperson added.
Together with the line about development priorities being determined by the effort required to deliver, and it appears CONFCLOUD-7247 has failed to be judged a priority for over sixty quarters at least in part because it will be hard to do.
[6]
The spokesperson all-but admitted that as their missive continued.
“Regarding the specific issue of changing the author on a Confluence page, our evaluation of the effort versus value for customers has pushed it down lower on the list of priorities” the spokesperson told us.
That’s at odds with a January 2022 post by Atlassian staffer Divya Sriram who wrote “Solving the ability to change the author of an existing page is on our priority list. Currently, we are focused on critical work to improve table formatting and performance for Confluence Cloud pages - problems that are also affecting a very broad pool of users.”
[7]Critical hole in Atlassian Bitbucket allows any miscreant to hijack servers
[8]Atlassian reveals critical flaws in almost everything it makes and touches
[9]Atlassian: Unpatched years-old flaw under attack right now to hijack Confluence
[10]At last, Atlassian sees an end to its outage ... in two weeks
Atlassian’s spokesperson pointed out 1many past additions to Confluence and [11]roadmap that promises plenty more.
Confluence users can therefore presumably be grateful they’re getting any updates, especially given the product has [12]serious security problems
[13]
If you’re aware of a feature request older than CONFCLOUD-7247, from Atlassian or any other vendor or project, [14]send me a mail and we’ll ask the culprits why they’re taking so long to sort things out. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/12/atlassian_cloud_6999_2023/
[2] https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-7247
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YxcaO31didhn56Vudx2aJgAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxcaO31didhn56Vudx2aJgAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YxcaO31didhn56Vudx2aJgAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YxcaO31didhn56Vudx2aJgAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/29/atlassian_bitbucket_critical_bug/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/21/atlassian_critical_security_advisories/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/03/atlassian_confluence_critical_flaw_attacked/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/11/atlassian_outage_backups/
[11] https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/cloud?selectedProduct=confluence
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/03/atlassian_confluence_critical_flaw_attacked/
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YxcaO31didhn56Vudx2aJgAAANg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] mailto:simon.sharwood@theregister.com
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: If you ignore a problem long enough
Where I work, your user ID is based on your initials. Our brain-dead systems won't allow you to change a user's user ID: So people who change their name (marriage, divorce, gender reassignment, etc) have to keep their old ID which can be upsetting to some.
Re: If you ignore a problem long enough
A user can change their full name and it will update the name shown for the author.
It's on the Priority List, I swear!
See here it is in Position 51,526! It falls right after "designing a better fitting ice skate for Satan to use to get to work"...
So as you see, it's on the list, and we'll get to it eventually...
Re: It's on the Priority List, I swear!
...ice skate for Satan... ...get to it eventually...
That must be when Hell freezes over then?
Re: It's on the Priority List, I swear!
It will be fixed AFTER Hell Freezes over.
Imean Satan's a pretty demanding customer, much more so then the usual Confluence Customer...
Maybe there are other ways
like adding an author section at the top or contact details at the end.
> “Regarding the specific issue of changing the author on a Confluence page, our evaluation of the effort versus value for customers has pushed it down lower on the list of priorities”
Says everything you need to know about Atlassian and their products. Let me translate that for you:
'After some investigation, we found out that this issue requires a horrendous amount of work, because of short-sighted, poor, decisions made during software development (which our products promote). When we told Business how much engineering time it would take, they said hell no. Since our software and processes don't take so called "low-priority" issues into account with relation to how long they've existed, this work will literally never be done'
Slow news day, eh?
You must be struggling for content that a feature request becomes news worthy.
Re: Slow news day, eh?
Worked for Asslassian long?
"we can’t build everything at once"
Of course you can't. That is not what is being requested. What is being requested is that you have a product that works. Something you should have done before making it available.
Once upon a time, when you published your software, you had to make sure it worked because there was no Internet for you to post updates and leave people to manage themselves. If you failed to ensure your software was functional, you wouldn't sell, end of.
These days, with near-ubiquitous Internet access, you no longer care about making a fully functional product, you only care about making a product function enough - the rest will be dealt with by support team.
One guy working in a basement.
I like my FTTH, but sometimes, I long for the times when I could buy a product and it worked .
Pretty pretty rules, OK
“Solving the ability to change the author of an existing page is on our priority list [for 11 years so far]. Currently, we are focused on critical work to improve table formatting and performance for Confluence Cloud pages"
If incorrect authorship or ownership is not deemed a high priority something's seriously wrong with the thinking. There are rather more potential legal issues with that than with the formatting of tables. But that's developer thinking. I remember testing an accounting package that allowed invoices to be modified and deleted after issue. The devs didn't think anything was wrong with that.
See it another way
In terms of documents being written by colleagues who have long since passed away, maybe it's nice to see that something they contributed is still relevant?
It's like the story of someone who lost their dad years ago, and they realised that their dad set a really fast time on a car racing game. So when he'd play, he'd be racing against the ghost car (representative of the fast time set) so it'd be like playing with his dad. But one day he realised he was faster than his dad, and if he finished the lap the time the dad set would be lost.
I mean it's irrelevant really to the conversation but it makes me think about loved ones who have long since gone, and then stumbling across something they made. It's a connection to a happier memory in a lot of ways.
Re: See it another way
"Mind... The Gap"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-21719848
Ah yes, the looks simple to fix, but is actually complex class of bugs, these are always the hardest to explain
"Hard" is not a reason to "do"
It's too hard to fix that security flaw that allows someone to steal all of your money.
Sure.
This is why we moved away from Atlassian products. Too many dumbass architectural flaws.
Reminds me of a meme:
I'm a new employee and I'd like to change my username. How am I supposed to sell our software using this address?
Lorenzo Servantez loser@somesoftwarecorp.com
Mr. Servantez,
Unfortunately, all email addresses are automatically generated by the system and cannot be changed. Please, believe me.
Regards, Biron Tchaikovsky bitch@somesoftwarecorp.com
If you ignore a problem long enough
It solves itself.
What happens if women ever become programmers? They change their name when they get married.
Can you believe women used to change their name when they got married?