Yea, the author field is still being used, it's just no longer a part of the SnapshotSettingsForm. The author input field is added directly to the template. (https://github.com/dimagi/core-hq/pull/709/files#L3R112 https://github.com/dimagi/core-hq/pull/709/files#L4R428) The author field will still be displayed for all existing publications and will continue to be displayed for all new publications not published by an organization (provided that they specify an author: https://github.com/dimagi/core-hq/pull/709/files#L0R68)