Removing/Hiding "Content" from Sidebar

[Renz Christian]

Hi everyone, 

So I've been tasked to research platforms we can use for hosting knowledge bases. I've been able to create the space and pages but I can't seem to find a solution to hiding/removing the "Content" section by the sidebar of Confluence. 

For additional context, there was no option for me to hide/remove it from the "Edit Sidebar" settings. 

My end goal here is that the contents of the "content" section is still accessible, but not visible as we've created shortcuts in the homepage that will allow them to access those pages. Just that having it visible and accessible defeats the purpose of creating shortcuts. 

[Kristian Klima]

@Renz Christian Hello and welcome,

Users can hide it by hitting [ but, normally, you cannot hide it permanently.* It would defeat the purpose of Confluence as a collaborative tool. 

If you want to separate people who create from people who consume, there are tools that allow you to put a 'skin' on your Confluence space, thus hiding the navigation tree.

Having said that... as a content person, depriving users of navigating / exploring the content, processing the information they see in the context, is detrimental to the purpose of a 'knowledge base'.

If content is the king, then context is the emperor.

Search, links, etc. cannot replace information obtained via natural curiosity. And they certainly don't address the issue of unknown unknowns - users will not ask a question about something they don't know exists ;)

Which is why I steer clear away of tools like Zendesk, Intercom, etc. that do not allow you to present a coherent information structure of content.

*there might be 'experimental features' or programmatical means in Confluence that allow you to do that.