Why reporter field is filled automatically as current user and can be modified by admin in default?

[Haeil Lee]

In Jira default, reporter field is filled automatically as current user.

And, in default permission scheme, reporter field can be modified by admin only.

I guess, Jira attempt to freeze the information of creator in normal case, 

but admin can modify due to management issue.

Why that behavior is default?

Is there some historical or experimental background?

Is there any cons when modifying reporter?

Or, is there any side effects when modifying reporter?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

To answer "why" (as Fazila covered everything else I'd say), it's a bit of history. 

Originally, when Jira was first written, when people raise issues, Reporter is the field in which you capture who is doing it.  There was no concept of a creater - if you reported it, you created it.

But, people started using Jira as a help-desk, and automating stuff that created issues using accouns that were not the reporter to raise things for people.  Atlassian quickly added a function that made this a bit more friendly - you would "report" an issue, but be able to do it for someone else by using "modify reporter", which was something you might not want to let everyone do!

But in those cases, a lot of people still needed to see who had put the issue in.  Hence the creator field got added.

[Haeil Lee]

Thank you for sharing interesting history. :)

I've got an inspiration from you and Fazila.

There are still choices; modifying reporter makes sense to represent the person who raises an issue without Jira, but it makes conflict with traditional usage because reporter is not creator, not intuitive.

Also, modifying reporter (by any logged users) is not free from abusing, and it makes confusions as Fazila said.

It's extremely hard. :(

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I do tend to avoid allowing "modify reporter" - I'll let automations use it, but for day-to-day human use, I stick with: reporter = creator = person who typed it in (or emailed it) because they needed it

[Haeil Lee]

Thank you for sharing your experience. :)

[Fazila Ashraf · Accepted solution]

@Haeil Lee 

There might be some situation where the actual person reporting the problem might have contacted the team via a chat or email or in a meeting..

In such situation, the admin could raise  a ticket in the queue on behalf of the user just by modifying the reporter to the actual reporter. All the notifications and further logics would take the reporter value only..

Even though the reporter can be changed, the history tab will show the actual creator now. And can be searched in jql with creator = 'username'.

Hope these helps.

[Haeil Lee]

Thank you for your answer.

I'm glad to know 'creator' newly. :)

But my major question is; what are cons for modifying reporter by any logged users?

[Fazila Ashraf]

I wouldnt open it to any logged in users. 

The user might get confused and modify the reporter wrongly causing confusions.

'Creator' is not very obvious in the UI. Would prefer i could trust the reporter field for who actually created that ticket.

Modifying reporter should only be an exception task that can be done only by admins

[Haeil Lee]

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Great! :)