Here we have collated a number of frequently asked questions about the move to Confluence Questions. If you have other questions that don't have an answer, please ask them using the answers-migration tag or comment on this page.
Why are you moving to Confluence Questions?
Atlassian Answers currently runs on a home-grown derivative of OSQA, an open-source Q&A platform. OSQA is no longer actively maintained by the original authors and our own forked version is not managed by a full development team. By moving to Confluence Questions, our Q&A system will be powered by a successful product backed by a dedicated and skilled engineering team who will continue to improve and enhance the product in the long term.
We also think that Confluence Questions is an improvement from the current platform with its powerful editor and clean interface. Atlassian believes in "dog-fooding" our own products, which is why our public issue tracker is powered by JIRA, all our documentation is on Confluence and nearly all our open source code is on Bitbucket.
Is the name or URL going to change?
No, the system will still be referred to as "Atlassian Answers", and the address will still be https://answers.atlassian.com.
Will existing content be migrated to the new platform?
All content from the existing system will be migrated to the new system, including Questions, Comments, Answers, uploaded files, user accounts and karma.
What will happen to my karma points?
Don't worry! Existing karma points will be transferred to the new system un-changed.
What are the main advantages of Confluence Questions?
The biggest advantage of moving to Confluence Questions is that we will get to use the powerful Confluence Editor when asking and answering questions. The Confluence Editor gives a superior experience for attaching images, basic formatting and inserting code snippets compared to the current editor.
In addition, moving to Confluence Questions will provide opportunities for better integration with other atlassian systems such as https://jira.atlassian.com and https://confluence.atlassian.com, as well as an updated, cleaner and more modern user interface.
Are there any features which will be removed as part of the migration?
As part of the move, we are analyzing the features of Atlassian Answers that did not receive much use and shutting them down in order to simplify the user experience. Here's a quick summary of the main features that will be retired:
- The Daily Digest email will no longer be offered as a notification option. Instead, interested users can opt to receive the "Recommended Updates" email from Confluence, which will include links to Q&A content.
- Users will no longer be able to select Favorite Questions. Since Answers does not provide a way to view "favorited" questions, this feature has little value.
- The "Help us Improve" sidebar widget will be removed (thanks to those who provided valuable feedback via this method!). On the whole, we have seen that many users found the functionality of this widget to be confusing and distracting. A better feedback mechanism will be implemented in the future.
- Social Media integration on the sidebar will be removed. This feature allows users to share questions on Facebook and Twitter, but our analysis shows that this feature received very little use.
- The ability to follow other users will be removed. Only 0.5% of all user accounts have ever followed another user.
- The ability to earn new Badges will be temporarily removed until Confluence Questions has native support for it (see CQ-363 for more information).
Wait, did you just say I'm going to lose all the badges that I've already earned?
Until CQ-363 is implemented, it won't be possible to earn or display badges on Confluence Questions. However, we're going to keep a record of the badges that have already been earned on Answers and once Badge support is implemented, we'll move this information across to the new system.
I also want to migrate my OSQA system to Confluence Questions. Can you show me how you did it?
You can find the scripts that we used to migrate content between the two systems in the following repository https://bitbucket.org/jaysee00/osqa-migrator/overview
It's important to note that these scripts are provided as is, and will not be supported by Atlassian. Atlassian's version of OSQA is forked and modified from the open source version, so our migration scripts may not be 100% compatible with your system.
Will search engine links to Answers break after the migration?
We're aiming for 100% of links to continue to work after the migration, especially links to pages that are indexed by Google and other popular search engines.
Will I need to sign up for a new account on the Confluence Questions system once it's live?
No, the switch-over to the new system should be entirely seamless, and you can continue to log in to the new system using your existing Atlassian account account.