On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Let me know if you have any concerns,
I don't think all (or even the main) use cases of #roadmap are covered by
the proposal.
* #user-notice is much more noisy. A #roadmap task is "describing a
significant new piece of user-facing functionality or the launch of a new
API or service", while #user-notice should be put on any small bugfix that
might affect somebody's workflow.[1] It also does not have any time
component; #user-notice is typically put on some task so that a newsletter
entry can be made when the task is closed. There is no telling beforehand
when that will happen. It has proven a great mechanism for making sure that
users learn of change right before it happens. It is not useful at all for
getting a high-level overview of what's going to happen (i.e. a roadmap).
* the deployment calendar is completely useless for non-developers. (For
developers, it's just mostly useless, and time-consuming to use.) It also
only shows the next 1-2 weeks .
* #release is used by products which have a version number, which the
majority of Wikimedia software does not. And they don't have a time
component either. (In general the tag seems fairly useless to me.)
The main use case for #roadmap, as I understand it, is to keep track of
work towards quarterly goals. Erik's original proposal for the roadmap tag
said: "this could ultimately replace some of the detail in the on-wiki
goals pages, and ensure we have a single calendar type view into expected
deliverables". None of the proposed replacements comes even close to
fulfilling that role.
[1] which, as we know, is a rather low bar.
https://xkcd.com/1172/