What is the best way to hide past edits/comments when using Anonymous Access?

Question

We are still fairly new to Confluence. One of the main purposes in using Confluence was to create a digital product manual that can be easily kept up to date using the wiki. However, there were lots of edits and comments made (when we didn't really know what we were doing) in the current version we would like to be public that we don't want to be visible.

In order to fix this, one of our team members attempted exporting the space and re-importing it into a new Space, but all of the links still link to the former space.  How can we fix this easily without having to manually change all of the links?  Additionally, the "Related Topics" macro at the bottom of all the pages had to be manually edited to link to the correct page and we don't want to have to re-do all that work if we can help it.

What solutions are there?

Thank you for your help!

Irina_Bel_Stiltsoft_ · Answer

Hi @Jana Rasmussen ,

It seems like our app has a feature to partly work around your trouble. Talk - Advanced Inline Comments has a feature that allows setting visibility restrictions for the comments on a space level or/and for the specific comment thread. Say, you want your comments to be visible only internally. You can set space permissions for the comments only for a group or/and users who can view them. However, any user who can make comments can change restrictions for specific comment threads.

For example, you want to restrict viewing for the following groups and users as in the picture. A user with Confluence admin right needs to go to the Space tools - Permissions - Talk permissions and add them:

This means, that by default all the comments in the space will be visible only to the groups and users listed. But if a user wants to change viewing for a specific comment (for example, to discuss something privately), they can do it like this:

You can use our app along with the Comala app and show external users only what they need.

Matt Reiner _K15t_ · Answer

@Jana Rasmussen

None of us REALLY know what we're doing in Confluence, we're just learning as we go. 😉

The space copying approach is the only app-less approach I can think of. And sadly, it's not without its faults. That was the approach my team used for a while, until we felt the pain enough to look for another solution.

I think Comala Publishing is a great choice to give you readers a Confluence view of your Product Manual without the information about comments and edits. 👍🏻

If you'd like something more like a help center site, maybe check out my team's app Scroll Viewport. With it, you can write content in one or more Confluence spaces and publish them out as a help center. There is a customizable theme around your content, and no comment or page change information is included. You can check out a few examples here: https://www.k15t.com/rock-the-docs/publishing/publish-your-content-as-a-help-center-with-scroll-viewport

James Conway_4h3kp2 · Answer

Hi @Jana Rasmussen ,

Confluence is a great tool for collaborating and keeping content up to date, but there are use cases such as yours where you do not want all the edits and comments available to your readers. This is where the Atlassian Marketplace can help, there are a range of cool add ons such as Comala Publishing that can help you publish content to a public space (and fix those links at the same time!), you can also combine Comala Publishing with Comala Document Management if you want to implement a document workflow to approve content prior to publishing.

You can check our our webinars here, and contact our friendly support team at https://support.comalatech.com anytime.

You may be interested in some case studies of customers that have used our apps to develop knowledge bases for both internal and external use.

* Port of Antwerp - Building a Confluence Knowledge Base for All Hands
* Tyler Technologies Creates Knowledge Base for Customer Success with Confluence and Comalatech
* How Central Valley Robotics Uses Confluence and Comalatech to Inspire Students

@Matt Reiner _K15t_ and friends at K15t also have some great content that may give you some ideas at their site Rock the Docs.

All the best

James
Senior Product Manager