If I look at a Confluence article, it says 'Created by So-and-so at whatever-time.' If I look at the article's Page Description, it lists 'So-and-so' as the author of the page.

One use case where this is problematic is migrating data from other systems. If Mr. So-and-so is tasked with getting pages from the old system in to Confluence, they do not become the author of the work they are reproducing. As such, they require the ability to assign authorship. They can remain the page's creator because they created the page, but they did not author the work in that page.

1. The creator of a migrated page is not necessarily the author (you do not become the author of something when you reproduce it – ask a copyright lawyer)
2. The owner of a page is not necessarily the author (the author could've left the company, but they're still the author)

So all of these concepts need to be clearly separated. Making creator/author the same by default will maintain the current behaviour. Adding the ability to assign an author will cover use cases where someone is tasked with migrating existing data into Confluence. Such a function should have associated permissions controls so that it is available to trusted members of a team.

There are various workarounds such as directly changing the database or using a macro to contradict what Confluence is telling you, but Confluence's job is document management. Having to do unsupported things to the db or having to jury rig a solution to track the most basic meta-data associated with a document makes me want to say words that would be counter-productive. So I'll leave it there.

Thank you for your time and consideration,