Proposal for a "Releases" Category

[bjlittle]

Each repository can have up to 10 Discussions Categories.

I propose that we start a Releases category as an open ended discussion (rather than a question/answer category) dedicated to Iris releases.

We could have a thread per release e.g., v3.0.x, v3.1.x etc where each thread contains any and all information relevant to that release feature branch e.g.,

• The proposed/scheduled date for a forthcoming release
• The release manager
• Freeze and chill dates
• Links referencing the release milestone, project, tags and releases
• Details on packaging progress of the release to conda-forge and PyPI
• Details on pending patch releases such as content, due dates etc
• General release specific announcements

Essentially, a one stop shop for the community to garner dynamic information regarding the status and progress of a release. My hope is that it would allow the community to better track the progress of a release, but more importantly touch base with developers and the release manager.

Obviously, this would complement our existing RTD documentation (release timelines/roadmaps, nudge, wink @tkknight) for both stable and latest. However, having an active and curated discussion thread would perhaps help fill the void in release communication for the community, as they only ever tend to know about a release once it's actually happened.

Ideally, I'd love to make the release process way more transparent and accessible to the community, as an end-to-end process. Having an active Releases discussion category may also help us as core developers be more responsive and aware of community priorities and requirements regarding an active and/or scheduled release.

Anyways, have your say... what do you think?

[bjlittle]

A few votes for the proposal from @tkknight and @trexfeathers, which is enough for me... let's roll with that and see how it goes 😄

Thanks guys 👍

[pp-mo]

Archiving "answered" Q+As

[rcomer]

Discussions can now be closed 👀
https://github.blog/changelog/2023-03-14-adding-the-ability-to-close-github-discussions/