Announcing the new Atlassian Community

[Jeremy Largman]

A New Community

We're thrilled to announce that we will soon be launching a new community platform with a ton of bells and whistles: on top of Q&A like Answers has today, we'll add discussions, user-generated articles, product-specific landing pages, topical themes (like 'git' or 'agile') and more. We've got a dedicated team of Atlassians to improve the platform, make sure our community is well appreciated, and answer some of the questions that are getting missed right now. It's a massive upgrade! 

Here are the must-know's about this change:

• On April 3rd, all answered usage and admin questions from Atlassian Answers will be migrated over to our new community. We'll make sure not to migrate spam, and we're leaving out the unanswered so we can start with a clean slate. 
• It will be a familiar experience, only better. At its core, Q&A will be the same. You can watch labels, accept answers, upvote, and adjust your notification preferences.
• It goes without saying that we're taking an agile approach to shipping the new community, but it bears mentioning that we have a dedicated team not only of developers and designers, but also dedicated community managers and support staff. We're launching v1 and will iterate user feedback over time. We'll have a 'meta' community space where we'll open up discussions on how to improve the platform. 
• This new community will be specifically for usage and administration of Atlassian products, and will not include development Q & A. For all of your development questions, head over to the Atlassian Developer Community.

A Sneak Peek

Screen Shot 2017-03-14 at 11.53.21 AM.png

One primary experience we're changing is introducing the concept of product and topic homes. We'll have a JIRA collection as well as topical discussions like 'agile development' or 'project management.' 

Retiring Atlassian Answers

You've been great, Answers!

We'll be retiring Atlassian Answers as you know it, as this new community will encompass more than just Q & A. Hold on to those t-shirts, they're collectors items now. For those of you who've been around since the early days, dating back to forums or before we were on Confluence Questions, be excited. We're growing up. But it's not without a bit of a sad touch that we say goodbye. 

RIP_Answers.png 

Ask or follow questions under the atlassian-community tag, we'll be watching there. Thanks for your support and here's to the future of our online community!

[Sasha Reminnyi]

Without SPAM - sounds great 

[Thomas Schlegel]

Oh yes, I'm so tired of deleting all these support-number-gmail-*@§-posts...

[Jeremy Largman]

Yes. Confluence Questions doesn't have strong spam protection out of the box, so it's been an uphill fight. The new platform is built for an external community. 

[Rodney Hughes]

10000000% agree - will be great to not have all the "customer support phone number" spamming

[Thomas Schlegel]

Seems that the Spammers are fighting their final battle. It's really really bad today, I'm giving up.

[Sasha Reminnyi]

I won't be able to fix my laptop any more after migration )))! Let's be quick! Let's save all those numbers and mails)!!

[Mirek]

No Spam? :) - Not hard to find one -> https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Discussions/%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%B9%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%9B%E0%B8%B1%E0%B9%89%E0%B8%99-%E0%B8%AA%E0%B8%B3%E0%B9%80%E0%B8%A3%E0%B9%87%E0%B8%88%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B9%E0%B8%9B/td-p/459550

[Mirek]

We're launching v1 and will iterate user feedback over time. We'll have a 'meta' community space where we'll open up discussions on how to improve the platform. 

At launch, we won't have feature parity on everything with Answers (no leaderboards or swag, to start out). We're going to build out that functionality as we go. So the points will get reintegrated into any new systems we build. We're not starting everyone over

Here weee gooo agaaaain!  .. 3 years ago I completely remember migration to Answers based on Confluence Questions from OSQA .. Similar excitement and plan. How long we were waiting for swag and other basic elements.. How many problems, confusion and questions from users.. I remember that the worst thing was that Answers were not given to us to beta test new platform.. Not saying about moving to new Answers design, done even before migration to CQ, which was a bigger mistake.. https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/160237 .. 

@Jeremy Largman [Atlassian], you were there few years ago answering many that kind of questions from user feedback including mine.. That was 4 years ago and now we are seeing that again users will be again a group of free testers. Many things should be already found before official release. It is like this ..

Sounds wonderful but could you reattach the images not linked off hhttps://extranet.atlassian.com/ so that we can see them?

Images fixed.  Good catch!

It should be a catch from you guys - to be responsible from what you post, release and give to the field. System should be tested in 100% - not only by Bamboo to check that build is successful but also by real testers actually using the system on many platforms and browsers (not only on Mac )  

Minimum plan is to give to the users as much a transparent system that we could get. In all changes until now it was a huge effort to bring retired features back.. I would like to really see a full working system, but seeing that you have the same plan as before make me a little bit mad.. I know that user feedback is very powerful and you do not want to spend time on features that would not be useful etc., but still it would be better to ask before, make a survey, consult the most experienced users, .. then go to the designers, developers, etc. that will make a new system.. 

Without SPAM - sounds great 

Spam? If I would see I will believe. Until now I am very neutral with that kind of excitement. I asked many questions about answers.. e.g. https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/301589 .. One of them was: 

How Confluence Questions will deal with Spam?

Answer: We've got similar mechanisms to Answers: reCAPTCHA at the Atlassian ID level, CAPTCHA on comment/answer, manual keyword blacklisting that admins can set up, and we're working on the ability to quickly ban spam accounts manually and remove all their content (tracked at https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CQ-844). 

As we see.. 3 years "fighting" with spam and .. we are moving to a different platform  .. Similar problem was on OSQA - Atlassian Answers - Spam Prevention .. Moving to Confluence Questions did not help and I might say that if you did not already developed a good spam module, it is very high chance that we will continue to see spam...

On April 3rd, all answered usage and admin questions from Atlassian Answers will be migrated over to our new community.

If you would say April 1st, I would say that this would be this year Atlassian joke, but if this is April 3rd that probably is true - you will really do it! 

Is this good? What can I say..  After release you would definitively have something to announce on upcoming Summit (Yey!), but I just hope that this will finally a good move forward not a step backwards like it was in the past with previous migrations. Will see.. 

As always you can count on me - I will definitely give my feedback  

[Jeremy Largman]

Thanks for the feedback Mirek. I don't want to respond point for point, but generally a lot of what you're saying is fair. The best I think we can do is go build it now.

[Eugene Sokhransky _ALM Works_]

Any chance size Large t-shirts will be back in stock before April 3rd?  

I'd love to get mine 

[Jeremy Largman]

I'll chase it up. 

[Eugene Sokhransky _ALM Works_]

Thanks a lot 

[Niclas Sandstroem]

Will try to get my hands on one as well. Good news!

[Jeremy Largman]

Ok here's the swag update: we're not going to do a new order for Answers swag for the things we've run out of, but we've got some extra inventory of existing swag here and there.

Given the amount of spam we've got I'm wary to post my email address, so please comment here and I'll reach out to you. We'll find a way to get our extra inventory into the hands of the people who deserve it!

[Niclas Sandstroem]

What spam? @Jeremy Largman [Atlassian] in fear of not remembering to order a T-shirt I opted for a medium one but if Large is available that would suit my summer fit body better!

[Robert Leitch [ALM Works]]

Eugene you have too many Atlassian t-shirts already.

[Lacey McDonnell]

@Jeremy Largman [Administrative Account] there's a specific Atlassian Answers shirt? I don't see that on swag.Atlassian page... 

[Daniel Eads {unmonitored account}]

What are the chances of potentially getting some swag if we don't quite have enough points to pick up an order currently?

[Jeremy Largman]

@Daniel Eads - Pretty decent chances - we have a little bit left over. I'll email you.

[Peter Bengov]

Hi Jeremy, I would like to join in, if possible. 

Need some swag here to boost engagement :)

[Phill Fox]

Sounds wonderful but could you reattach the images not linked off hhttps://extranet.atlassian.com/ so that we can see them?

Thanks 

Phill

[Joe Clark]

Images fixed.  Good catch!

[MattS]

Changed a typo: it's to its 

I know, what kind of person does that!

[Jeremy Largman]

Oops! Such a rookie mistake...

[Robert Leitch [ALM Works]]

Sneak PeEk, while we're at it.

[Jeremy Largman]

Looks like I need a copy editor. I suppose I should be glad that it's apostrophes and homophones that everyone's focused on!

[Robert Leitch [ALM Works]]

[Mahesh S]

What will happen to my reward points? Will it be retained back? 

[Jeremy Largman [Administrative Account]]

Yes - we will migrate existing points. You'll be able to see them in your profile.

At launch, we won't have feature parity on everything with Answers (no leaderboards or swag, to start out). We're going to build out that functionality as we go. So the points will get reintegrated into any new systems we build. We're not starting everyone over .

[Jeremy Largman]

A slight correction: we won't have points, since those will be recalculated. We will keep the number of answers and accepted answers (which is a basic stand-in for points, and keeps the history). The rest of my comment above is accurate; we'll be using this to build our new functionality but it won't be a primary set of features out the door.

[Tim]

meaning, I can keep chasing the backpack and jacket on the new plattform in the future?

[Jeremy Largman]

@TtheB - no. Swag will change, especially since our current stuff says Atlassian Answers on it. We do believe in swag, but it'll be a different all-new formula.

[Zahir Nathoo]

I was wondering if you Atlassian sells products that help customers set up a similar platform as "Atalassian Community" for their own organizations? What type of platform is this? Is it considered a Forum platform? Was created bespoke for Atlassian or is Atlassian employing one of their own products to deliever the experience of the Atlassian Community? I would appreciate some help on this.. if anyone knows, I would be grateful.

Cheers,

Zahir

[Jeremy Largman]

Atlassian Community runs on Lithium, which is a community platform. We've custom designed it for Atlassian.

We do sell Confluence Questions, which is specifically for Q & A. It can be used externally, but it's mostly designed for internal (staff only) company usage. We ran Atlassian Answers on top of Confluence Questions, and moved when we got big enough to need a solution that was built for the external community use-case. Confluence Questions worked well for us while we had a mid-size instance.

[Lacey McDonnell]

@Zahir Nathoo, If you're not looking to implement the Confl Quest as mentioned by @Jeremy Largman, then may I suggest a specialized HelpDesk project in your JIRA instance? 

What I've done is compile common-use components and allocate a distribution group to certain notifications. There are lots of ways to tweak it so that anyone can contribute to the RFIs posted there. You can also use the JIRA native Label field to mark them, like the questions in Community.

The bonus here is that you can even generate usage metrics out of the project to identify training gaps, etc. 

[Zahir Nathoo]

That makes sense. Thanks Jeremy for your answer. We are a tech start-up, early stage. We've developed software and have started to use JIRA Service Desk to collect feedback, bug reports and feature requests. We are also going to start using the knowledge base functions to provide extra "help" docs. 

However, we want to slowly start buiding the community around our product over time. We want people to ask questions, post comments, and discuss the different ways in which they are able to leverage our product. This should include not just people /companies who are our customers, but also external people/companies who can join the conversation, and get a view into the community of customers. 

My sense from what you are telling me is that I might have to look outside of Atlassian for this type of platform?

Atlassian Answers you say was built on top of Confluence Questions. Therefore, you must have been treating your customers as if they were internal staff members so that they could ask questions and get answers? What would you say is the PRIMARY difference between Confluence Questions and the JIRA Service Desk using Confluence for Knowledge Base?

Thanks for your time. 

[Jeremy Largman]

 What would you say is the PRIMARY difference between Confluence Questions and the JIRA Service Desk using Confluence for Knowledge Base?

It's really just a different content type and engagement model. A Knowledge Base would be for company-written knowledge base articles, where your staff is taking the knowledge they gain through support and writing solutions. Q & A would be for an open support system where questions get asked in public and anyone (including staff) can answer (like this). 

Sometimes customers have more trust for KB articles; ideally they are the vendor-recommended solutions. Although often, customers just want answers, and wherever they come from is fine.

The other difference is that a knowledge base would tend to be read-only for the public, which would elminiate your need to have spam controls or deal with user management.

[Jack Brickey]

@Jeremy Largman [Atlassian], I agree with the approach as we have all had to 'clean house' on problem tracking systems before. I know I have more than a few unanswered but stale questions and am fine w/ reposting any that are still relevant to me. I look forward to the new baby and am optimistic that it will be better than the last. No system is perfect but AA worked well for me and my only real issue was the spam so solving that would be huge! Keeping my toes crossed.

[Jeremy Largman]

@Stephen Kairys - Part of the new platform includes an elevated focus on answering questions with more consistency. That includes a consistent focus on growing our community as well as dedicated Atlassian support staff helping to fill in the gaps of our unanswered questions.

The decision to not include unanswered questions was to get us towards an effort to answer all our questions. By removing the unanswered, we can tease out which ones are actually still open and wanting answers and which ones are abandoned.

So the idea is this: the downside is you'll have to repost. The upside is, you've got a much better chance at getting your question answered!

[Dmitry Tyomkin]

My experience with Answers is rather checkered. For a question on how to set an assignee in the groovy script one can find a dozen of answers and they are all different and only one or two actually work!!! Do you plan to migrate all those bad answers over? Did you find a mechanism to validate the solutions that are being offered? I know it's free but sometimes it take enormous time to wade through obsolete, deprecated and plain wrong advice.

[Stephen Kairys]

Overall, I like the concept. But, I have an unanswered question that I'd hate to lose if it's not answered by the time of the migration. Why can't such questions be kept, perhaps filtering out the ones that are obvious SPAM? Thanks.

[Mizan]

Nice (y)

[Venkata Reddy]

That's great to know. Looking forward to see the new community.

[Jeremy Largman [Administrative Account]]

@Francis Martens (iDalko) - no, we're not going to keep Answers alive. Take some screenshots! 

@Bryan Robison - the content from Answers will be migrated (all the answered non-spam questions, to be exact), and yes we will do URL redirects. If we delete a question it'll redirect to the home page. 

[Bryan Robison]

+1. Will Atlassian Answers be kept alive in a read-only format or at least redirect to the same post in the new system? I have quite a few bookmarks and links in Confluence that will need to be updated if Answers is going away.

[francis]

Hi Jeremy,

Atlassian answers is a nice demo environment for Questions.  We're using it quite a bit during demo, as it contains a huge amount of questions and answers.  Any chance that this will be kept alive ?  

Francis

[Yotzin Cortes]

Nice!

[Jack Brickey]

Looking forward to it. AA was in need of a face lift and has certainly been plagued by maintenance issues of late.

[Gonchik Tsymzhitov]

Perfect!