Summary

When using the RSS Feed Builder the updated and published date for pages are both set to the updated date. The original published date is not retained, regardless of the sort by settings configured during RSS Feed creation.

    <title>Page One</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://localhost:5101/display/RF/Page+One" />
    <author>
      <name>admin</name>
    </author>
    <id>tag:localhost,2009:page-7929861-3</id>
    <updated>2017-06-05T19:01:00Z</updated>
    <published>2017-06-05T19:01:00Z</published>

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a space
2. Create a page within the space
3. Click on the at the top of the page > Feed Builder
   1. Select the space you've just created
   2. Under Advanced Options
      1. For Sorted by select either Created Date or Modified Date
   3. Leave the remaining items as the default
   4. Select Create RSS Feed
4. See that the page created date and published date match in the feed:

       <title>Page One</title>
       <link rel="alternate" href="http://localhost:5101/display/RF/Page+One" />
       <author>
         <name>admin</name>
       </author>
       <id>tag:localhost,2009:page-7929861-5</id>
       <updated>2017-06-05T18:44:37Z</updated>
       <published>2017-06-05T18:44:37Z</published>
   

5. Edit the page
6. Refresh the RSS Feed
   

Expected Results

Per a developer comment on a Confluence 2.2 bug report, CONFSERVER-7197, the created and updated date will be identical, but only according to the settings on the feed. So:

1. If you've set the sort by to created both dates should be the created date
2. If you set the sorty by to be updated both dates should be the updated date

It has been decided that there is no point in providing rss feeds that get just "created" or "modified" content only... Hence I will be changing this option to sort the rss feed dates by either the creation or last modified date. (ie setting the published date in the rss to the content's created date if the user has selected to sort by 'created' - default will be set to the last modified date) This new behaviour does not have any effect on existing rss feeds generated (through conf) with the statuses and will work the same as sorting on the modified date.

Actual Results

Regardless of what you set the settings to both the updated and published dates will display the updated date:

Sorty By Created

http://localhost:5101/createrssfeed.action?types=page&pageSubTypes=comment&pageSubTypes=attachment&types=blogpost&blogpostSubTypes=comment&blogpostSubTypes=attachment&spaces=conf_all&title=Confluence+RSS+Feed&labelString%3D&excludedSpaceKeys%3D&sort=created&maxResults=10&timeSpan=5&showContent=true&confirm=Create+RSS+Feed&os_authType=basic

    <title>Page One</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://localhost:5101/display/RF/Page+One" />
    <author>
      <name>admin</name>
    </author>
    <id>tag:localhost,2009:page-7929861-5</id>
    <updated>2017-06-05T19:47:43Z</updated>
    <published>2017-06-05T19:47:43Z</published>

Sorty By Modified

http://localhost:5101/createrssfeed.action?types=page&pageSubTypes=comment&pageSubTypes=attachment&types=blogpost&blogpostSubTypes=comment&blogpostSubTypes=attachment&spaces=conf_all&title=Confluence+RSS+Feed&labelString%3D&excludedSpaceKeys%3D&sort=modified&maxResults=10&timeSpan=5&showContent=true&confirm=Create+RSS+Feed&os_authType=basic

    <title>Page One</title>
    <link rel="alternate" href="http://localhost:5101/display/RF/Page+One" />
    <author>
      <name>admin</name>
    </author>
    <id>tag:localhost,2009:page-7929861-5</id>
    <updated>2017-06-05T19:47:43Z</updated>
    <published>2017-06-05T19:47:43Z</published>

Workaround

There is no workaround at this time