Agree with above comments. Many of us have years of experience with wiki conventions, including links to undefined pages. Dropping this feature in the new editor breaks my workflow. Please prioritize this for an upcoming release.

+100 This issue forcing us to evaluate other platforms. Takes us "out of the flow" across dozens of team members which is a big productivity hit over time. That plus the tone deafness from Atlassian's product team on this kind of makes us wonder if we can trust the platform going forward.

Confluence is not a wiki if you can't add links to pages that don't exist yet on the fly. This is extremely frustrating to pull this feature from your product. Please put it back.

+1 Thanks team.

I'd like to echo what others have said above... this functionality should be prioritized by your team, it's hard to use Confluence without it.

As soon as I realised this functionality was gone, I moved back to DokuWiki.  It's just completely counter to my workflow - I used to build a framework of the pages I needed to create in the top-level page, and build the structure that way.  Coming from my previous company's on-premises Confluence to running my own organization I thought I'd be able to rely on the tools I was used to; not so, it seems.

I could not agree more with Yellow Chicken above. Without this functionality, Confluence is just like any other "wiki" and from my point of view, loses the edge against SharePoint and similar. If the feature is not restored soon I will consider migrating.

I'm joining this too, I've been following this topic for some time and I don't even understand what's the holdup and how this was not part of the original new editor release as it's one of the most basic features of a wiki. To be frank, I solely chose Confluence over other wikis for its integrations with the amazing Trello and Bitbucket but the more I use it the more I'm astonished by how terrible it is and "feature-lacking", especially compared to the quality of the previously mention software owned by the same company...

Joining this a bit late but I am shocked Atlassian doesn't just fix this.  It is a core wiki feature. Makes it very difficult to get into the zone and write.  What is there to study here?

Hi - I'd just like to clarify the point here - ...with a wiki what you want to be doing is jumping into it and making quick page edit and structural changes. Lack of this feature to create links to pages makes it really awkward to define or change the structure. It's crucial as unless it's easy and intuitive - people will simply not bother to organise their pages.

Out of all the confluence functionality, we probably use the same 5% of it on an average day, yet we used this feature everyday.

This is the most fundamental function of the editor. You write some content, make links to new content, then edit that content.  How was the existing frictionless functionality of making new pages on the fly not considered the most essential part of the new editor? This is absolute core essential functionality. What was the thought process behind adding this annoying and unwieldy friction to content creation and trying to palm it off as "progress"?

@sweintraub

The problem I have with the "consultation process" is it means they aren't sold on bringing this feature back. Why on Earth would you need to consult on something so cut and dry as this?

It's a fob off, and puts the task into the corporate machine for another washing. 

If you're going to open this up to consultation - tell everyone up front how long that will take, and the honest reason WHY you feel you need to consult on THIS issue.

One of the core values is "No bullshit" - but all you have to do is read many of the 10-15yr old outstanding tickets on here to see the company has strayed so far from that value it should be removed. 

Just put us all out of our misery and tell us 2 pieces of information, be open honest, no bullshit:

1. Are you going to reinstate this functionality in its original form?
2. When will you do it.

Anything less than this is just disingenuous to a loyal base of users that now no longer have "no choice". The alternatives are vast, but we stay because deep down we like Atlassian - we just don't like where it's headed.

Hello everyone, 

We were happily surprised by the quick replies to our invitation to participate in research sessions on this topic!

Thanks to you, we reached our participant goal. If you expressed interest but weren’t selected this time, we definitely have you on our short-list for future sessions if we need more input.

Thank you all for being so interested and passionate about making our products better!

I see the $75 gift card as some minor recompense for all of the irritation and extra work that the lack of this feature has caused me since I first brought it up last July.  

I am more curious about whether this is actually being worked on, since the task remains unassigned.  I guess that Atlassian doesn't want to publicly announce who is actually working on it, either to protect them, to to hide the fact that they haven't actually assigned it to anyone!

I certainly hope this is above board and an honest attempt to find the best solution.  I'm also open to the possibility that there is a better one that what we had before, as unlikely as that appears, as it was certainly quick and easy.  So lets remain suspicious but help?

Having dropped the feature, its clear someone doesn't quite understand why and how this feature is critical, and without us making it clear what makes it critical, and what about it is critical, its likely to fall short.

@sweintraub

I cannot say this for others who have posted here, but I think part of the problem is that it can be seen as dishonest/disingenuous to remove a feature, then when a lot of people complain talk about how you want to improve the situation (instead of bringing back said feature, or at least explaining WHY it can't be brought back).

People haven't been talking about how they're somehow not entirely happy with the new editor - they've been clearly stating that a feature was removed and they want it back.
Talking about "the use case that drives you to use the feature" sounds like "we don't really want to bring it back, so we're looking for reasons why you are wrong".

Which, in turn, reeks of "We know better how to do what you do, so shut up and do it OUR way."

Maybe it's not intended that way - but it can be seen as such. Not everyone thinks the same way.

I think Trent has already addressed that as well; what would have been right would have been not launching a product that wasn't ready, not forcing organisations to move to it and not taking this long to put back basic functionality. I think Trent is also accurate that the aim was to focus on adding things that would broaden Confluence's appeal as wide as possible, at the expense of it's original core base.

I don't think it's an unreasonable objection to make, that they are extending the time even further by consulting on something that shouldn't have been removed. However, I have also offered to follow their process and will say this to them directly, so let's see how long that takes.

They are asking us to participate in a process that helps them get it right.  I get that its been frustrating, but now you are unhappy with how they are trying to help, and its likely unproductive.

What frustrates people the most is this:

Everything we used to be able to do, and can't with the new editor. But hey, there are now HUNDREDS of emojis - because people who write technical documentation and use it as a wiki need those 

Kseniia,

I think Trent's comment is bang on the money. If you're going to use a stock reply and don't incorporate the context, you run the risk of just angering people even more. It's bad support.

You've got people in these comments saying you've removed a fundamental element of the service, something core to what a wiki is and displaying a lot of anger and resentment. Your message has just perpetuated that. You need to restore the functionality that so many have asked you to put back.

Kseniia, whilst it's great you want some feedback. I'd say in this case all you have to do is read about 60 of the 107 comments to see the use cases - it's pretty clear. 

This is one of those cases where you can just apply Occam's razor (the simplest solution - reinstating what was already there is the correct one) and give the community its feature back.

Plus, save the company a whole bunch of $75 vouchers - this one is cut and dry. 

Update: The sign-ups to the research are closed now. 

We were happily surprised by the quick replies to our invitation to participate in research sessions on this topic!

Thanks to you, we reached our participant goal. If you expressed interest but weren’t selected this time, we definitely have you on our short-list for future sessions if we need more input.

Thank you all for being so interested and passionate about making our products better!

Hi everyone 👋

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about this feature.

We’re currently working to bring this feature to the new editor, and we’d love to schedule some time to get your feedback. If you're interested in taking part, please send an email to kcherniavska@atlassian.com with a few possible session times between 9am PDT and 6pm PDT during the work week. We’ll schedule a session at your convenience.

What’s involved?

• Sessions are 30 minutes long and are conducted over video-conference.

• After scheduling, you'll receive a calendar invite with a video-conference link.

• During the session, we'll chat and get to know you and the work you do in Confluence. Then, we may share a prototype.

• As a token of our appreciation, you'll receive an e-gift card worth $75 USD within 5 days of completing your session.

We know this feature is important to many people. Rather than just replicating what was there before, we want to make sure we fully understand the use case that drives you to use the feature.

We look forward to meeting you!

I'm new to Confluence, and I'm disappointed that this functionality isn't available. I'm creating a knowledge base from scratch, and I desperately need placeholders  for future articles.

Neat.  Thanks Avinoam.

For everyone watching this issue, looking at Avinoam's comments today also led me to the confluence cloud editor roadmap:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/confcloud/confluence-cloud-editor-roadmap-967314556.html

And that gives me some hope that this will get fixed soon-ish.  Thanks for working on this Avinoam, I am super excited to get this feature back.

Hi all,

As we're working through this feature and others, we wanted to address a lot of your concerns as to the future of the new editor and legacy editor.

Please read our recent community post here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-Cloud-articles/Change-to-your-content-is-in-your-hands/ba-p/1324476

Thanks,

Avinoam

For those looking for alternatives, take a look at https://www.xwiki.org/

I've just given up.

It's clear to me that Atlassian have a narrative and they intend to focus on it at all costs, pretending nothing else is import and using JIRA as shielding -  to systemically ignore and attempt to distract users from their legitimate complaint. (Their valuable feedback as actual USERS of the system)

The call has been neglected for so long, misdescribed, re-framed and there've been so many cynical and obvious attempts to gaslight the large community of users who've bothered to articulate the problem and its impact in detail. My impression is it's just willfully arrogant vandalism of something that was a distinctive and valuable product.

I cannot believe this is purely a matter or ignorance or millenialization of the Atlassian core offering, but actually just arrogance and willful disengagement from the userbase.

Without this feature we don't have a wiki but some sort of wix-clone. It's not what we signed up for and it's not useful.

I feel foolish for having championed Atlassian and this is clearly the case for many who have contributed perspectives to the outcry on this negligently handled problem.

I have never in my career seen a more essential product issue, more frustratingly and my ineptly handled.

If you are from Atlassian and reading this (and I very much doubt it will be read) and you'd like me to be less inflammatory and more measured, how about a proper followup and committment to a date. How about fixing the downright weird misdescription of the problem? That would even be a start.

For now, this page is the link I send people to now when they ask 'that Atlassian software.. is it good?'.

I think more priority needs to be given to re-implementing this. We recently evaluated alternatives to Confluence and I ultimately decided to reinvest in Confluence Cloud, moving off of our old 6.x on-premise version after I had read in the documentation that this feature was available. Now, we are on Confluence Cloud and have found that the feature has been removed.

As others have mentioned, this is a key feature for wiki functionality. Now, after a new page is created, we have to go through and find every page referencing the new page and inserting links to it manually. This seems unacceptable to me that this feature was left out and more so that it still hasn't been addressed with a higher priority. This is going to cause a huge loss in productivity with my team now.

Just chiming in to say that I too hope for someone to find a good alternative. I've started to look myself, but it doesn't seem easy - lots of Wikis that I'd use, but none that my coworkers would accept.

It's too bad, I was starting to like Confluence...

I wonder what other things have gone wrong, that a feature as important as this is not fixed...

We have started to evaluate other products to move away from confluence, because of it's unreliability. Every day you just hope, that they did not remove yet another feature.

Yeah this is rooted. Pre-linking pages is probably the most powerful features of the whole WIKI concept. Not only does it serve a purpose of allowing users to focus on the core of what their writing, but also encourages people to create missing content when they see it.

I know Atlassian do A LOT of data analysis internally - but I truly cannot see who their target market is anymore. 

Amazing that this feature was deleted in the new editor - to me its absolutely key to how wikis work. Looking forward to its return.

Thomas,  I've been keeping notes.  Someone else mentioned Nuclino, but I don't have a name or any comments.  Report back if you get some.  Thanks, Michael

Matt,  Sorry if I sounded harsh.  Reading your comment had me realize that I felt harsh, and not only for Atlassian.  I'm reminded of a business deal that went terribly bad last year.  As we were getting treated badly, we kept holding out for the good will that had been there in the beginning.  We committed the fallacy of sunk costs.  All the while, a friend kept reminding us....  "When someone shows you who they are, listen."  So... sorry if too much of that interaction slipped in here.  But I do want to pay attention this time.... I paid a lot for that chunk of wisdom.  And.... I, too, am mourning the loss of a good tool.  Bon voyage, Michael

Anyone using Nuclino? I've heard that mentioned as a good alternative

Please notify me when this becomes available. Odd that it was removed... I hope there is a real plan to bring it back.  Was the fundamental feature why I started using confluence in 2007

Michael,

You're probably right. I've been hesitant to step away from what has historically been a very useful tool, but I need to pay attention to the writing on the wall. I'll be interested to see what my colleagues here come up with as alternatives.

-Matt

Sunny,
 
Matt,
 
You already have all the information you need.  Read between the lines.
 

• There has been no update since November 2019!
  Need more details?
• This feature is fundamental to how Wiki's work.  It always has been.
• Atlassian considered it a "feature request".  Most users considered it a sev-1 bug.
• There has been no update since November 2019.  (Say "It is being ignored")
• There was a LOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGGGG silence before November  (Say "It was ignored for a very long time before it was ignored for a long time.)
   
  That's enough information for me.  I'm leaving as soon as I can scrape some time into researching alternatives.
   
  Others,
   
  Before you close out your Atlassian account, would you please share where you're going?  It would help the rest of us out (as in "help us to get out").

Thanks, Atlassian Community, for being such a strong action-focused community that you can recommend alternatives to Confluence without being blind to how the landscape has changed.  Brand loyalty is a great thing.  Until it isn't.
 
Best,
Michael

@Sunny Xu

Any updates since Nov 15 2019 about a timeline for this feature? Its availability will be a factor in the purchasing decision I need to make for my company within the next couple of weeks.

Thanks.

Really impacting our ability to use confluence as it should be used - creating documentation has become quite laborious without this feature. Plus as this impacts the ability to create links from placeholders on old pages as well it's really messed up all the work we had in progress.

For those impacted, don't forget to chime in on the linked bug: https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-68165

Also, for those that have a few minutes to waste, there's a terribly ironic tweet about time saving shortcuts that could use a few more comments: https://twitter.com/Confluence/status/1225543486990143489

4 months now is a long time to not have core wiki features. I'm unable to use Confluence any longer for building this content. I've had to reduce all my activity in Confluence to blog posts. The new editor is buggy on top of this whole issue of the removal of core features. I find no value in struggling to build content with bugs while not having access to features I purchased tool to begin with. It's not the customer's job to build the Confluence product. It's Atlassian's job to ensure the product functional for the purposes folks purchased it for. No workaround was given (that works) and for some people like myself, I could do what I needed to on October 31; when I walked in November 1, I no longer could do what I needed to. Unacceptable in most software development circles.

Unfortunately this functionality has been replaced by another tool. A standard wiki is really all I needed. MediaWiki w/page forms and semantic plug-in is a great alternative. It's free and under my control. It's quite unfortunate that Atlassian chose this path and has given folks no other option. The lack of response from the team is astounding to me. First there was no plan. Then it was oh look, congratulations there's enough interest in the feature we took back to put back in, now let's gather more interest. That was July last year until January THIS YEAR. We're to deduce then, this decision was made last year w/no plan to reimplement. Features were taken away officially in November 2019. 4 months later people like myself who purchased a wiki for wiki features, haven't had a wiki for 4 months and have had to go elsewhere. This whole time absolutely NOTHING from Atlassian. No acknowledgement. No empathy. No words to helps us think they're actually reacting to this. NOTHING but a patronizing 'congratulations we're now gathering interest'. Please, you all removed features people actively used. Absolutely nuts and terrible customer relations.

Once I have the time and availability to jump ship, I will. "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me".

The fact that this feature has been removed (and the lack of response from the devs to the problems this causes) is making me rethink my decision to center my company's internal communications channel on Confluence.

Has anyone found an alternative wiki solution that actually behaves as a wiki should?

That should be CTRL-LEFT CLICK

And yes please fix this in the server version as well.... a bit embarrassing this functionality is not available or working since ages : https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-questions/Is-it-possible-to-link-to-a-not-already-created-undefined-page/qaq-p/215815

Rather i'd see functionality instead of funny "team" marketing pix on twitter.

I have heard from a good source within the company that this functionality should be completed by end of Q1 assuming nothing unforeseen comes up higher in priority.  The good news is that it looks like it will be resolved.  Just a little more patience... 

Arrgh. After finding the work-around here did not work, I resorted to only using the old editor, converting any new editors through copy and paste. Only to discover every time the old editor creates a new page from a undefined link creates A NEW EDITOR page!
Broken. It's just simply broken. Oh the humanity of it.

I have not been able to use Confluence since November 2019, and have experienced the severe failed handling of this with no acknowledgement or empathy to the fact Atlassian willingly broke how I do my job (and clearly many others). ‘Thank you for letting us know your needs‘ is a terrible response. I let you know my needs when I purchased a fully featured product 5 years ago. You chose to remove those features and now I’m fighting to have things put back. I said this before, Atlassian has shown us what they’re capable of. They will rip the carpet from under you and rub salt in your wound by making you fight to get that rug back. Just terrible business practice, poor release management and horrible customer relations.

This is an internal channel. Make sure Atlassian feels the heat publicly. Go to Twitter, Facebook or other social media.

https://twitter.com/confluence

I admit I did have the same question Bob. It communicates no-one wants to take responsibility.

I looked at both the closed topics on this page, and those did not have assignees as well.

So I do not have high hopes for this so far. The issue needs a bit more pressure from the users. 

I'm confused.... How can this task be both "In Progress" and "Unassigned"

I guess that we shouldn't expect much actual progress!

Hello everyone.

Previously working functionality does not work now. This is called regression. So this should have a bug status.

We did have a function to top down create a document structure without having to mind the eventual information pages necessary to fill this structure. So this function makes working top down possible. Quite a vital function if you ask me.

Now we are forced to create all kinds of documents first, having a rudimentary impression how all these information chuncks later need to be stitched together. Everyone can foresee the iterative process needed for building the information structure afterwards. That structure wil have to be changed more than once while the information needs to be moved from one page to the other.

In one sentence: we are forced now to work bottom up. 

While explaining this I ask myself what I am doing, something like this should not be a discussion point, for me this is simply necessary.

Please recover this functionality. 

How to use Confluence editor without this feature?! Don't make me move to Notion or other solutions please.

Hello all,

I just noticed this issue is now in progress!  **So this is actually good news (I hope)

Atlassian, do you have an ETC for this issue?

Thanks,

This should be classified as a bug, not a suggestion. 

Please add this feature back. You removed something that saves a lot of clumsy steps. This is just part of how people naturally create content in a wiki. Normal process is to just add the link to the new page as you author the content. Once you publish it, you go back and add in the content when you can. It doesn't seem like there is a reasonable replacement for this and without it, you have added several extra steps to every single link.

OLD PROCESS: 1. Create referring page content and put brackets around the word(s) where you want a new page created; 2. Publish the page; 3. Click on the new page link you just created; 4. Create Content; 5. Publish Page.

NEW PROCESS: 1. Create referring page content and just leave plain text that you hope to remember to come back to in future but have no indicator that you need to; 2. Publish that page; 3. Create a new page with the title you need to remember; 4. Publish that page; 5. Navigate back to the referring page; 6. Find your spot on the referring page and the words you want to link; 7. Make the words a link to the new page you created. 8. Publish that page;

I feel the need to add to chorus of disbelief and frustration over the ommission of what should be considered a basic capability of a wiki.  Being able to create an "undefined" link to content for further information while not breaking my mental flow is very important to my productivity.  This is a huge step backwards for me and my workflow.

wow. this is the whole point of using a wiki and its not possible. #mustfix

I am also looking into migrating to Nuclino or other options.  Confluence is becoming unusable and unreliable.  In addition to Atlassian's utter indifference to customer feedback.

@Tim.duckett

THANK YOU so much for the tip about Nuclino. This is DEFINITELY an option we are now exploring to replace confluence after this HORRENDOUS feature/functionality strip.

I have lost faith in Atlassian for the last time.

This feature (or lack thereof) was the deal breaker for us, I'm afraid.

We've now dumped Confluence in favour of Nuclino, and are re-evaluating Jira.

While it might have been acceptable for bugs to creep in (things happen, after all) or for removal of a core feature to be suggested, the lack of interaction from Atlassian here - on their own in-house forum! - is a clear sign of their inability to engage with their core customers.

Disclaimer: I'm quite angry right now. I rarely write pages, but when, then I don't like to have to search for basic functionality while my thoughts are on another topic (I want to write about).

This is game-breaking bad - the removal of this essential functionality should be reason to drop confluence like a hot, radioactive potato.

Whoever removed this cannot ever have written documentation pages. WRITTEN, not drawn or designed. When you write, your fingers are glued to the keyboard. The less mouse-interaction, the better.
(Incidently, I didn't use the mouse for bolding, nor do I intend to use it to save this comment.)

Sunny, it's now been 2 months with no update of plan or plan for plan - radio silence from Atlassian. Not to mention 6 months since this was submitted originally.

Please update us?

Or if Sunny is no longer there,  SOMEONE from Atlassian, please respond.  This is really beyond ridiculous at this point.  We've been very patient.

Please escalate this up director or vp level for a response.  

Another vote for bringing this back.  I didn't realize how much I needed it until it was gone, and now that it is, I am a little frustrated.  It's been a feature forever; taking it away without a replacement really sucks.  It's going to add 30-60 minutes of mindless page creation and linking for me today, which is a bummer.

I agree with Tim. I just believed to be to dumb to find how to do it. I would never thought, this basic feature is not implemented yet.

Handling of existing links is a great strengh to confluence, but this is missing on a daily basis if I work on new documents. And the workaround is so tedious, because you have to save an unfinished page first to be able to place the new page beyond it to then insert the link in the original document.

Removing this feature is just unbelievably dumb. Creating placeholder links to as-yet undefined pages is one of the core features of a wiki platform - without it, Confluence becomes little more than a glorified word processor. 

This is bonkers bad. This is, arguably, the key feature of what makes anything a wiki. Stubbing out links to undefined pages and having our internal community populate new articles isn't a "cool feature" - it's table stakes to Confluence. 

Please, please, please resolve this. I'm very concerned that this is still "under consideration" many months later. The new editing experience has been rolled out, thus fundamentally breaking how many customers use Confluence. 

The work around is not a solution. The amazing value of the previous functionality is that you can stub these pages out, any author clicks the link, a new page is created using the linked text as the page title, and the original page is automatically linked to the new page. The work around doesn't do any of that at all. 

I'm trying to expand our use of Confluence, but by missing this feature I will have to stop that project. It's that much of an impact to how we planned to use the product. 

Sunny, it's now been 1 month with no update of plan or plan for plan - radio silence from Atlassian. Not to mention 5 months since this was submitted originally.

You said... 

    "I have some good news that, after hearing your feedback to have placeholder link to an undefined page, our product team is looking to build this out in the short term! We will provide another update once we have a concrete timeline for this feature's release."

When you say "short term",  I think we are hoping a fix in a month,  and at the very least, a definitive schedule for a fix in a month. 

We've got nothin'

Please update us?

It is remarkable to have NO PLAN to add a feature a ton of people use but do have a plan to deprecate the old approach.  Could you maybe NOT disable the old editing UI until this is available? 

I'm just sitting down to outline a brainstorming session where we identified ~40 items I want to list on one page and provide links for fleshing out.  I started it on the new editor, thinking the capability existed, and will now go back and start over in the old editor, as its the only way I can get my work done efficiently now.  Even including all the timeI took to enter this complaint, I'll still save time going back to the old editor.

I also believe "inline typing linking" along with undefined pages is fundamental to quickly creating a full wiki, especially when building out the space. I trying to create all the links as needed will break my train of thought, and going back to edit pages when the link is created is going to be  real pain.

Please consider this soon!

Hi Sunny,  it's been another 3 weeks since your last note about a fix for this being made a priority.

Can you please give us an update on the timeframe for a fix, or at least a date when we can get a trimeframe?

And I agree with Rick Hadsall that a solution to this that does not include "inline typing linking" is only a half solution.  

So Sunny, please make sure that nuance gets communicated as well.

Thanks!

ATLASSIAN: Part of the requirement to resolve this is to return inline typing linking (e.g., typing [ starts a link) – this is a major piece of "quick" and complete linking.  Having to go back and highlight is going to lead inexorably to fewer links, which is not the point of a wiki

This is an unbelievable omission ! Such a fundamental feature .  Atlassian don't seem to understand how their customers are using the product .

Michael – Beware, Atlassian does not consider errors in their documentation to be bugs, but only "suggestions".  I have filed numerous bug reports about the documentation not matching the functionality, and have gotten no headway.

The fact that this feature was removed is less impactful to me than the fact that the it was implemented without updating the relevant documentation.

I wasted a few hours yesterday trying to understand why things weren't working as they did in the past, why the documentation didn't match what I was seeing on my screen, and posting a question on the community forums about this issue.

Incorrect documentation is worse than no documentation. Atlassian, please remind the Confluence Cloud developers that their work isn't finished until they update the doc.

Incredible that Atlassian have still forced out the v2 editor without features like this. We complained in March, had the v1 editor reinstated for several reasons, yet v2 is now being forced again and most still aren't implemented. Ridiculous.

I've also just this hit this bug on the new editor. This is crazy creating new sections of content is now so slow compared to the old editor. This will be hated by many of our users.

Hi @bob!

Great suggestion! I've submitted 6 tickets (1 on this specifically and 5 on the buggy editor) and have made multiple calls to speak product management since October 29th and here I am building out my own wiki solution because I no longer have confidence in Atlassian. Organizations like our simply cannot have interruption of workflow like this. I haven't been able to effectively work for the last several weeks. We are working to leave the platform. We simply cannot wait to hear if core functionality is going to make it on while investing more time experiencing and reporting bugs. Time to jump ship for us.

Robert

I don't think that comments here, or up-votes get us anywhere.  2 suggestions:

1. File a support ticket every time this effects your work flow.
2. Try this link: https://www.atlassian.com/company/contact/contact-ceos

#2 will at least get another support ticket started.  I sent in my comments via that route 2-3 weeks ago, and I still haven't heard anything.

To be clear, this is a screenshot of what happens when I try to work with old pages with undefined links.

Seems I can't do an upload here's a link: https://www.screencast.com/t/mUs17cjq3

I appreciate the response, but I have to be honest, the last time I actively used confluence (aside from a necessary blog post communication) has been over a week. I cannot use the tool in it state right now since all new things bring me to new interface. I cannot state enough how core this is to wiki functionality. We have workflow wrapped around this. Pages in old format don't work. This is simply unusable for us.

That's very good to hear, Sunny.
I hope they hold to doing this with priority.

Many thanks for going to some effort (doubtless) to turn the boat around !

I look forward to hearing some specifics and hope the gap in functionality is resolved very soon. My team are trying to work around this and we use Confluence every day. Just saying that every day it can be brought ahead makes a difference.

Best Regards,
Paul

Hi everyone,

This is Sunny again from the Confluence team. I have some good news that, after hearing your feedback to have placeholder link to an undefined page, our product team is looking to build this out in the short term! We will provide another update once we have a concrete timeline for this feature's release.

Best,

Sunny

Admin Bernd – In many months of discussion, I have only seen 1 reply.  Thanks Sunny for being that 1 reply.  The reply did not show any interest in exposing design considerations, work flows, user stories, design trade-offs, interest in user input, practice of user testing, or .....

How long would you be interested in waiting for the kind of input you suggest?  It's been months.

No offense to anyone out there. Think about this:

a) Product management is completely okay with removing features and not providing (or in this case remaining silent) workaround/mitigation plans for customers.

or

b) Their team is too immature to realize not to call out this core functionality before starting new development.

This is released folks. The fact that it's not in this release is the problem for me. In my humble opinion, this is Atlassian's response. They've chosen to go down this path or they're too incompetent to realize their mistake and can't undo it because they've gone too far down the path of this new editor. New editor aside, this functionality is a deal breaker for our organization.

I already commented on this topic and probably made clear that I am a strong supporter of this "feature" (which has been removed and is not a "new feature request"). Still I am also a supporter of options and try to give the opportunity to ATL to reply:

How is ATL's vision on this issue - How is the workflow of creating a network of (WIKI) pages structured and edited by a bunch of different folks?

Example from one of my empl. just a few days ago:

• You design a functionality. (First page describing functions)
• You design software-methods and want to describe them in sub-pages (linked from main doc)
• You define data (eg. Tables) and want to define them in subsequent pages later

I'd be interested in the way ATL solves this in their own workflow.

Thanks, Robert, for the recommendation to Plan.io.  I'll check it out.

I think it can be safely said that the new Confluence was released from Beta several months before it was ready.  This product should be pulled from General Availability until significantly more work is done and basic functionality is achieved.

Michael – Right now, Plan.io is the one I find to be the next hit the ground running best solution. You might check that out. It has an integration point with a task management and version control as well as a wiki all in one. I'm even seeing now in the last few years they've started a service desk offering. I moved to Atlassian from plan.io 5 years ago. I was completely okay using it before, but wanted just that little bit more. It was simple and served the primary needs for our organization. I was interested at the time in 'something more'. That's what brought be to Atlassian. I'm regretting this decision now. Sometimes the simple really is the better. Plan.io is definitely not as bedazzled as Confluence (things like page properties which is super cool), but it does have a wiki where you can use wiki mark up in traditional form, if that's what you're looking for.  It's tasks are also in wiki markup, similar to Jira's (oldish a year ago) interface. The cost is higher if you want to segregate your projects, like I do. So that is something to look at. There are also migration tools I'm familiar with that help facilitate migration from one platform to another, so I'm not so concerned either about migrated my 1000s of articles built over the last several years. I'm just upset that I have to do this since there has been nothing from Atlassian. It just blows my mind that no one in the meeting where this decision was made asked the question 'we are talking about removing core wiki features. are we prepared to overcome how we sold a wiki and are no longer offering a wiki product?' Blows my mind.

I hate to say this, but I'm also bringing the table of owning infrastructure with a previous version of confluence. I really like confluence like it was a week ago. I was completely okay with not having mark up, but instead access 'markup like' functions through the '{' command. I was okay with that even though it still last week wasn't arguably a wiki. I could still perform 'wiki-like' functions. At least I still felt like I bought the product I purchased. This is not the case any longer. I just really don't want to own infrastructure. Plus there's the risk of lack of support. It's a lot to weigh. This sucks. Really sucks. At very least it's a stop gap to keep our business process going until we can come up with a better solution since we can't count on Atlassian here to do the right thing.

Robert – Hear!  Hear!

Years ago, I invested many hours selecting a Wiki.  For years, I built on this decision.  When I started a new project, I just started using Confluence without even (re)thinking my decision.  After all, it was a good decision then, so it can only get better.  Right?  Wrong!

To Robert's point, this week I started a new project and DID NOT start a new Confluence space to support it.  I used a series of Google Sheets instead.  I know that Google Sheets has nowhere near the rich feature set I need from a Wiki, but I just cannot bring myself to go with my old habit of using Confluence.

Confluence no longer fits the Wiki niche in my preferred tool bundle.

I have switched Wikis about 3 times in my career.  Well, only since the late 90's.  That's an average of every 5-6 years.  I switched mostly because a new company outshined the entrenched incumbent.  In this case, it's not a new player that pulled ahead, but rather an old player who stumbled and fell.

I am disappointed that I have to invest in selecting a new Wiki, but I am not disappointed that I choose to start a new project in Google Sheets.

P.S.  I'll report back to this thread with a quick summary of my research.  I would request that others do the same.  After all, we are all part of the Atlassian community, and what's a community other than a bunch of like-minded folks who want to help each other out.  (Pun not intended, but aptly serendipitous).

Atlasian, please help us out (as in a helping hand).

Lacking that, let's help each other out (as in an exit strategy).

Thanks, Sunny for honoring the input with a reply.  It would be very easy to (continue) ignoring this issue.

I was taken aback by your reference to this "feature".  This issue is not a feature, it is a bug.  That sentiment has been consistent in all of the discussions.  It is core functionality for a Wiki.  It is now broken.  Please stop referring to this broken core functionality as a feature. 

This issue is a bug.

P.S.  Thanks to many of the previous posters for reminding me that this is a bug.  It only became apparent to me upon reviewing the comments.

In line with other comments – I won't be recommending Confluence to be part of a toolset to anyone. At least until Atlassian comes to the table and rights this wrong. I am actively organizing internal discussions on next steps to measure Atlassian as our own toolset. Our knowledge process is written for having a wiki. Or, at least an alternative way to plan out pages with undefined links. This is how the tool was meant to be used. I think that's why, Atlassian, it shouldn't be a surprise to you that so many people are screaming about this poor decision. You removed core wiki functionality from a product sold to customers as a wiki. I made monetary decisions and migrated my knowledge base to Confluence. A lot of time and effort has been invested here. Honestly, I believe that's what you're going for. People won't want to migrate after spending time investing on building content. I think you should be prepared for an exodus of folks who expect to be able to perform wiki functions. I mean this in the most up front and honest way possible. My intent is not to put a threat out there. This is a terrible decision.

A wiki is decades old technology now. Maybe I'm exaggerating (and aging myself), but I can recall using a wiki all the way back to the early 2000s. People (such as myself) drawn towards purchasing a wiki are drawn to the features of a wiki. I'm glad to see a lot of other things still intact: incoming links, outgoing links, anchors (well, sort of not really but workable) and page history version/diffs are the other ones I pay attention to the most.

It's good to see I'm not the only one who things this way (reviewing the comments). Deciding which core features are part of a wiki should not be the direction of the wind blowing that day. 

Looking at this in a browser.. how the heck did a "smileyface" icon get used in the writeup?

Nice way to put it, Andy

Sunny,  what you need to tell your manager is that this should be escalated to the head of product development.

On the ROADMAP with NO PLAN as the status is not acceptable. 

When it is impossible to make up a date, then you need to ask the people who provide the date to give a DATE FOR A DATE.

At the very least that will let people here know not to bug you until the next date, assuming that the date for date is considered a reasonable and rational time frame.

Please pass this note along to the relevant product manager and engineering manager.  I'm sure they are capable of coming up with a date for a date. 

With 74 votes, Atlassian should realize that there close to 74 companies totaling at least 1000 users if not 10000 users that are generating very bad sentiment about your company because of the clear lack of understanding of the critical impact of this issue.  This continues to grow exponentially. ... and he told two friends, and so on , and so on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA7CKvoKEmE

Sunny, go forth and impress us with your vigor and resolve to make things happen at Atlassian rather than just providing us the canned answer you've been authorized to give us. Be our hero Sunny! Help save Atlassian from themselves. Don't be the gatekeeper or the message bearer,  carry the flag for us and drive change!

With all possible respect to Sunny,. Atlassian are clearly putting their most recent hires on this. People who at least have been briefed on the names of the products.

For anyone (from Atlassian) who may be listening - the nurses are telling you that this patient is a human and needs their oxygen supply restored. Please act to save the patient. We care about Confluence. We use it. For many years.

Confluence will not survive this.

Please take out the ear-buds and listen to us: the patient isn't wanting a brighter room or a different lunch menu.

The patient is DYING. Please help save the patient.
This functionality is OXYGEN. It's been cut off.
Hear all the beeping!!!!!

‘Your needs’ needs be replaced with standard/core features utilized on a wiki product sold to a customer. That fact a customer has to go through all this is absolutely nuts. This is core functionality of having a wiki. It was Atlassian’s choice to remove core functionality and now you have customers who purchased the functionality to begin with fight to bring core functionality back. Poor planning. Bad business practice and no community involvement. Did anyone reach out to customers ahead of this decision to understand business impact? I don’t recall seeing anything in my inbox.

A wiki is not a concept/methodology that ‘evolves’. Or as you put it in road map, when upgrades happen features change. Some new, some go away. A wiki is a technology/language to most people who thoughtfully seek out purchasing a wiki. Traditional folks such as myself expect the features for technology we purchase. Right now, I purchased a wiki 5 years ago and now I no longer have a wiki and am being forced to either make tough decisions to move my knowledge base or fight for features I originally purchased the product for. Outrageous.

Hi everyone,

This is Sunny from the Confluence team. Thank you everyone for voicing your need to have placeholder link to an undefined page. As confirmed earlier by my colleague, we currently don't a timeline to bring this feature into the new editor, which is why it is currently labeled as "No Plan" on the roadmap. Thank you for your continued feedback, and we will provide any updates if we are able to provide a timeline for this feature on our roadmap.

Best,

Sunny

Don't forget Social Media either. 3 months is a long time to be 'Gathering Interest' on a core wiki feature that has 'No Plan' in the road map. This is not a Wiki without Wiki format. https://twitter.com/confluence https://www.linkedin.com/company/atlassian/

They said they're listening? https://twitter.com/rbrown_sfdc/status/1194280615392075777

Add votes to this bug report:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFCLOUD-68165

Thanks for the comparison, Paul.

IMHO (a deliberately dated term), an elegant product would be able to balance a BOTH-AND strategy instead of creating a false dichotomy of EITHER-OR. 

It should be able to support silver-hairs who use "IMHO", mid-career folks who use "LOL", and fresh-outs who use more modern language.

It should have an easy on-ramp for "newbies" (a term that is meant descriptively, not judgementally), and also power users.

It should have features that can be learned and be useful within 5 minutes, an incrementally discoverable features that add value 5 years later.

I hold out 'emacs' as such a tool.  I learned it over 30 years ago.  It serves me well.  And I just learned some new features and techniques that help me.  Linux (nee Unix) is also such a tool.  Touch typing is a skill that lands in this category, too.

Confluence could be such a tool.  Alas, Atlassian did not choose BOTH-AND.

I cast another vote for BOTH-AND.