There is an easy fix for it. Just replace the following line in CommentSystemField (line 484)

groups = authenticationContext.getUser().getGroups();

with

List userGroups = new ArrayList(authenticationContext.getUser().getGroups());
Collections.sort(userGroups);
groups = userGroups;

I will schedule a fix for this bug to the earliest possible release as it is very easy to fix.

Kind regards,
Dushan

I have re-considered this issue and I think it may be unwise to go forward with this improvement/fix unless you provide a way (either in U.I. or properties setting) to revert to previous behaviour.

The reason is that because one cannot rename groups, one may find that the re-ordering is not as it was and there would be no way to fix it.

I fear there may be an overwhelming negative reaction to this change. In fact, I myself would not like this change either! Because I created "Staff" as my first group, it's actually quite helpful that it appears first in the dropdown (after jira-users).

So, again, although you've gone ahead and changed the behaviour for 3.7.2, I fear this "fix" may not be widely accepted unless there is a way to revert to the old behaviour or some way of configuring the sort.

Can't you just 'pad' the staff group with spaces, which will put it at the top of the group list?

I'll see if that may help (my own trick, eh?) . I do have some custom code that displays certain operations based on Group Name, so I would have to change all that as well.

Roles are not pertinent, I don't think, as the behaviour in the Comment Viewable dropdown is my issue. Anyway, I haven't tried 3.7 + in production yet, so I don't know what workarounds I can find.