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Submission + - Atlassian's "Confluence debacle", and the fallout from users (atlassian.com) 11

Submitted by panzerIVD
panzerIVD writes: Disgruntled customers of Confluence (the content-sharing application created by Atlassian) have been sharing their discontent in a somewhat hidden area on the documentation area of Confluence's product page. The negative commnets page have been growing exponentially over the past few months, and especially most recently. So why are customers so dissatistified? One of the major complaints has been Atalssian's decision to remove the text entering option called Wiki Markup Editor in version 4.0. The other complaints range from:
- issues remaining open or inactive for months, if not years.
- the RTE (the Real Time Editor which is the replacement to Wiki Markup Editor) is full of bugs, and is slow to use compared to the WME.
- The connection between Comfluence and Jira is broken.
- Incredulity over the founder's (of Atlassian) abusive use of foul language to describe and justify their decision to remove the Wiki Markup Editor.
(this last one is not a joke,..and is puzzling beyond belief)

Here are some of the complaints from the Confluence doc site:
"You can't have it both ways,.... you can't post sweet sugary positive comments,.....but hide customers that have a legitimate beef with your decision to remove the WME."

"My company just migrated to the version (5.x.x), which took away the wiki markup editor. After experimenting with the new page editor, I am giving up. Editing existing pages and adding is major pain. Inability to see content in its native format is another drawback. In its arrogance Atlassian decided to remove the essential part of wiki functionality, turning Confluence into a non-a-wiki knowledge management product."

"Removing the Wiki Markup Editor from Confluence,..is like Linux removing the command line interface,...can you imagine the uproar".

"IMO your product managers for Confluence are focused on the wrong priorities. Your reputation is bleeding because of it. Make the new editor support the same editing, search, and revision workflow without serious and unfixable bugs like you currently have, and you'll see this thread quiet down and eventually word of mouth among doc professionals and wiki consultants will improve again."

"I'll add that 15 months ago, in January of 2012, is when I first learned of the 4.x removal of the wiki markup editor. I discovered it when doing routine smoke testing prior to an IT-scheduled upgrade from 3.5.x to the latest version. Naturally, I threw up red flags and prevented our usual upgrade process. We're still on 3.5.x and stopped paying maintenance long ago."

and the most recent:
"It is obvious that Atlassian would rather sanitize the truth and manage perception than simply be who they say they are.
- Still can't get reliable PDF generation out of anything past 3.5.
- Still can't use WYSIWYG editor (which they released, despite their pledge not to, well before it was ready).
Atlassian listens? Fraid not. They're doing for Confluence what Balmer did for Microsoft. And they are damn proud of it.
For the record, I have not heard a single positive response to the change from anyone who has gone through it...except for those that appear on this page. Professional groups, nothing but bad experience... I wonder just how they are collecting their feedback?"

One commenter even went so far as to dutifully list all the issues people have posted in the thread. How many you ask,..well, I count 50 issues.

Matt Hodges, John Masson, and Paul Curren (Atlassian employees) have tried to stem the tide of these negative comments to no avail. They actually seem to make things worse evertime they try to rationalize the removal of the Wiki Markup Editor. There have also been (what appear to be "friends", be they friends, spouses, or actual employees of Atlassian) angry comments fired back at the unhappy users. Seems that all this negative exposure has gotten the better of these supporter's better judgement.

So the question is this,..why would a software company ignore their customer's harsh comments as a result of the removal of functionality?
Coke tried it, Microsoft tried it, and the list goes on,...and after a time,...once the dust settled,...they all buckled and restored the product to its original state. How long will Atlassian stand their ground?

See below for the link to the site where all these complaints can be found. I'm sure the fight is not over yet,..so if you like Mixed Martial Arts,..you're bound to love it. Atalssian's not tapping out,..but they're sure getting a beat down.
Google

Google Found Guilty of Libel For Search Results In Australia 223

Posted by Soulskill from the don't-point-at-that-guy-who-says-mean-things dept.
Meshach writes "Google has been found guilty for refusing to take down a libelous search result in an Australian court (ruling). Music promoter Milorad Trkulja sued Google for refusing to take down links to website articles promoting libelous claims that Trkulja was connected to organized crime in Melbourne. Google told Trkulja to contact the sites on which the offensive materials were posted, as those webmasters controlled the content. But the Supreme Court of Victoria decided Google was responsible for removing the damaging links the moment Trkulja asked them to remove the content. As a result of the jury's decision in the case, Google will have to pay $200,000 in damages to Trkulja."
Politics

Ask Slashdot: How Should Tech Conferences Embrace Diversity? 343

Posted by Soulskill from the at-least-one-romulan-for-every-human dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Register is reporting on how debate over diversity has managed to get a Ruby conference in the UK cancelled, as the speakers were 100% white male. The person running the conference, Chuck Hardy, said he 'was not prepared to put [himself] in the position of legal liability and cost ramifications if a sponsor were to pull out under social media strain.' He added, 'The ramifications of comments such as race and gender can have financial and legal consequences for the conference organizer. Raise these issues but allow the conference organizers the chance to highlight and act on these industry level issues. Accusation and slander is not a solution.' Should conferences embrace diversity from the start, or should they go forward even if the speakers are all of the same denomination? How far do we have to go to ensure we are diverse?"
Software

Apple Orders Memory Game Developers To Stop Using 'Memory' In Names 409

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the slashdot-trademarks-news dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this bit of trademark absurdity from geek.com: "Ravensburger is a German gaming company that specializes in jigsaw puzzles, but has also expanded into other areas such as children's books and games. The company owns the trademark to a board game called 'Memory' and has demanded Apple stop offering apps that have the word 'memory' in their title or as a keyword associated with an app. It may seem ludicrous such a common word can be trademarked, but apparently this is a valid claim as Apple is now serving notices to app developers. The choice an infringing app developer has is to either rename their app or remove it from the App Store."
Democrats

Barack Obama Retains US Presidency 1576

Posted by Soulskill from the but-will-he-go-for-the-three-peat dept.
Fox News, NBC, and CNN have called the U.S. election for incumbent Barack Obama. Of the so-called 'battleground states,' Obama carried Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, which, along with all of the solidly Democrat-leaning states, was enough to push him beyond the 270 required for victory. You can check this chart to see the full list of states that have currently been called, and by which news networks. The NY Times has an excellent interactive map showing all election results updated in real time, as does CNN. It's currently projected that the Republicans will retain control of the House of Representatives, and the Democrats will retain control of the Senate.
Privacy

California AG Gives App Developers 30 Days To Post Privacy Notice 108

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the not-gpl-compatible dept.
Trailrunner7 writes "California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced a crackdown on mobile application developers and companies that haven't posted privacy policies, at least where users can easily find them. The attorney general is giving recipients 30 days 'to conspicuously post a privacy policy within their app that informs users of what personally identifiable information about them is being collected and what will be done with that private information,' according to a prepared statement. A sample letter defines the issue at hand. 'An operator of a mobile application ("app") that uses the Internet to collect PII is an "online service" within the meaning of CalOPPA. An app's commercial operator must therefore conspicuously post its privacy policy in a means that is reasonably accessible to the consumer. Having a Web site with the applicable privacy policy conspicuously posted may be adequate, but only if a link to that Web site is "reasonably accessible" to the user within the app.'"
Government

Irked By Cyberspying, Georgia Outs Russia-based Hacker 95

Posted by Soulskill from the turnabout-is-fair-play dept.
coondoggie writes "In one of the photos, the dark-haired, bearded hacker is peering into his computer's screen, perhaps puzzled at what's happening. Minutes later, he cuts his computer's connection, realizing he has been discovered. In an unprecedented move, the country of Georgia — irritated by persistent cyber-spying attacks — has published two photos of a Russia-based hacker who, the Georgians allege, waged a persistent, months-long campaign that stole confidential information from Georgian government ministries, parliament, banks and NGOs."
Power

Ask Slashdot: What Stands In the Way of a Truly Solar-Powered Airliner? 590

Posted by Soulskill from the i-blame-gravity dept.
centre21 writes "I've been reading about solar-powered aircraft all over the Internet, as well as solar power in general. But I'm wondering: is it more than just solar cell efficiency that's preventing the creation of a solar-powered airliner? Conspiracy views aside (which may be valid), it seems to me that if I were running an airline the size of United or American, eliminating the need for jet fuel as a cost would be highly appealing. So, I'm asking: what stands in the way of creating true solar-powered airliners?"
Advertising

In UK, Apple Must Run Ad Apologizing to Samsung 190

Posted by timothy from the grovel-different dept.
sfcrazy writes "Apple has lost is appeal in a UK court against Samsung's Galaxy Tab. The court of appeals has upheld its previous judgment that Samsung did not infringe on any Apple design. According to the order Apple will have to run an ads in leading UK newspapers as well its own website stating that Samsung did not infringes its products. To ensure that the ad is visible the court also ordered that the text of the ad must not be in a font size smaller than Ariel 14. Apple will have to run the ad on its site for a period of one month."
Earth

How Viable Is Large Scale Wind Energy? 345

Posted by samzenpus from the blowing-in-the-wind dept.
New submitter notscientific writes "Renewable sources of energy are obviously a hit but they have as yet failed to live up to the hype. A new study in Nature Climate Change shows however that there is more than enough power to be harnessed from the wind to sustain Earth's entire population... x200! To generate energy from the wind, we may however need to set up wind farms at altitudes of 200-20,000 metres. To be fair, the study is purely theoretical and does not look at the feasibility of such potential wind farms. Regardless, the paper does provide a major boost to backers of wind-generated energy. Science has confirmed that the sky's the limit."
Earth

Nature Lover Vladimir Putin Flies With the Cranes 285

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the sarah-palin-vs-putin-rearing-his-ugly-wings dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Russian President Vladimir Putin is a nature lover. In 2007, the bare-chested president rode a horse through Siberia. In 2008, he fired a tranquilizer gun at a rare Siberian tiger. In 2010, he used a crossbow to shoot darts at an enormous whale in a fog-shrouded bay to collect tissue samples. Now Der Spiegel reports that on his way east to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Putin stopped at the Arctic Circle to fulfill a mission for which the Kremlin says he prepared assiduously for a year and a half: helping to save an endangered species of crane. In a meadow some 2,000 kilometers northeast of Moscow, Putin donned a white jumpsuit and black aviator goggles before swinging himself into the seat of an ultralight aircraft and as loudspeakers played the recorded call of a mother crane, Putin lifted off and a group of orphaned white Siberian cranes followed, allowing the aircraft to lead them south toward their winter habitat. On the first attempt, only one of the young cranes followed him up, which Putin said was because a high tail wind had caused the hang glider to accelerate too fast. On the second attempt, five birds followed Putin, but only two stuck with him for the full 15-minute flight. Putin's flight, given many minutes of airtime on Russian television, provoked an array of contemptuous jokes on the Internet, one of the most popular being: 'So Putin is off to wintering with cranes. Does this mean he's not going to be back before spring?' The Russian president, however, hit back at critics telling reporters at the conclusion of APEC summit that, 'It's true that not all flew right away, but the ones that didn't fly were the weak cranes' apparently alluding to the errant ways of those involved in protests that have hit Russia over the last year."

Comment Discount is on the wrong version (Score 1) 210

by today (#35792448) Attached to: Amazon To Offer Ad-Supported Kindle

This discount is on the version that you have to hook to your computer in order to update. A single $25 discount seems inappropriate for this devices.

I would rather see a discount on the free-3G/wifi version of the unit. In this product, you get free 3G for life. An ad-supported model makes more sense because you continue to receive a service in exchange for continuing to receive ads. It would also allow them to update those ads more often.

The best solution would be to discount the reader a bit *and* discount each kindle book you buy, say maybe by 10%.
Government

Feds Prep For E-Gov Shutdown 290

Posted by samzenpus from the down-and-out-on-capitol-hill dept.
dcblogs writes "If the federal government is shutdown midnight Friday, the feds plan to stop updating government Web sites that aren't delivering essential services. 'Most Web sites will not continue, only those Web sites that are part of these accepted activities would continue to operate,' the senior White House official said Tuesday. 'Accepted activities,' refers to essential, life and safety-related government services. The IRS, however, will continue to accept tax returns filed electronically and to process payments. 'We need to be able to collect the money that is owed to the U.S. government,' the official said. Paper-based returns won't be processed."

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