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How the Blank Confluence Page Stops Teams from Talking

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There’s something oddly intimidating about a blinking cursor on a blank Confluence page.

It’s like the page is saying: Go ahead, write something important.

And that’s where many of us stop.

I’ve felt it myself, even after years of using Confluence every single day.

Sometimes I just want to share a small update: a quick thought after a meeting, a product win, or a lesson learned.

But the moment I hit Create Page, my brain freezes.

It suddenly feels like I’m expected to write something profound - a proper page.

And just like that, I close the tab and tell myself: Maybe later

✍️ Why the blank page feels heavier than it should

Confluence is incredible for structured documentation, knowledge bases, and detailed updates. But page creation often starts with a completely blank slate.

Templates can help - they take away some of the anxiety by giving you a starting point - but even those assume you’re writing something formal or long-form.

They expect paragraphs, not snippets. Sections, not sentences.

So when someone just wants to post a quick note - Great job, support team! or We just hit 10,000 users 🎉 - it feels awkward to create a whole new page for it.

That’s the first way casual contribution gets blocked.

Not because people don’t want to share - but because the tool quietly tells them, this deserves a full page.

🤫 The silence that follows

What happens next is predictable. Only a few people, usually the same few - feel confident posting new content. Everyone else limits themselves to reacting or commenting.

The result?

Confluence becomes a curated library of well-written pages, not a living space where spontaneous thoughts or team energy flow freely.

Slack, meanwhile, becomes the dumping ground for those smaller updates. Someone shares a win, a funny story, or a lesson learned there. People react, it gets buried within a day, and the moment is gone forever.

The two tools end up at opposite ends of the spectrum:

  • Slack: quick but fleeting

  • Confluence: valuable but heavy

And what’s missing is the middle layer - a place for small, persistent updates that are informal but still discoverable.

💡 Why this matters more than it seems 

When that middle layer doesn’t exist, teams lose more than they realize. You lose those everyday moments that keep company culture alive. You lose the quick here’s what I learned posts that spark curiosity across departments.

You lose the habit of writing.

I’ve noticed it at Amoeboids too.

People want to share more. But Confluence, as much as we love it, sets a certain bar - like everything you write has to be “official.”

That formality creates distance. It unintentionally discourages small talk, reflection, and recognition - all of which are vital for connection, especially in remote teams.

And when communication only happens through big updates, leaders end up missing the real pulse of the company - the micro-stories that show what’s actually happening.

🚀 What if sharing didn’t feel like writing?

 I often wonder - what if sharing in Confluence didn’t feel like publishing a document What if it felt like posting a quick thought on Twitter or LinkedIn instead? 

Imagine opening Confluence and typing two lines:

Just wrapped up our customer call - learned something new about onboarding friction.

Hit share. Done.

It automatically becomes a small post in a shared feed - discoverable, discussable, and connected to the broader knowledge base.

It’s not a page. It’s a moment.

That’s the kind of frictionless communication we’ve been craving - lightweight, authentic, and human.

💬 We’ve been experimenting with something along those lines 

At Amoeboids, this has been a recurring conversation - how to make Confluence friendlier for casual, everyday communication.

Because sometimes the difference between silence and contribution is just how the editor feels when you start typing.

We’ve been experimenting with an experience that removes that intimidation - one where anyone can share short updates without the fear of a blank page.

I’ll share more about that soon.

But in the meantime…

💬 How do you encourage your teams to share small updates in Confluence without overthinking it?

Would love to hear what’s worked for you.

1 comment

Logi Helgu October 31, 2025

Nice thoughts.  I agree that there is a little bit of the informal (some might call noise) missing that has moved to other places (chat clients)...and to a certain degree it might be good to keep them separated ;)

Personally I love the Blog feature for anything short/informal...there I can mention/tag people and have a cronological overview of things/thoughts.  And I'm not going into what space I blog, but it could be any based on what I'm blogging about (personal thoughts on my personal space, product thoughts/annoucements on the Product space, team on team spaces, department on...you get the idea ;)

I've also ofter run into the black page (of no help) being used as the container of the sub pages.  This annoys my a little and I'm not fully supportive of the Folder items either since I've alwas added a little info (one paragraph) to the parent page to explain what it is and then just a Child items macro to show all the children.  But that's just because I feel that is simpler for people to understand than an empty Folder or a blank page ;)

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