Do y’all publish a roadmap? I’d like to browse it to see what (if any) of the topics that are important to me could be expected in the near future, if ever. 
AI-generated summary
The discussion revolves around the request for a Discourse roadmap, with ganncamp initially asking if a roadmap exists to plan for future features. Nat responds with a link to the Discourse version 3.2 roadmap, but ganncamp is looking for a broader, longer-term roadmap outlining general direction for the product.
Nat explains that the current roadmap highlights areas of focus, including staff experience and AI, communities, migrations, and plugin/theme authors. However, ganncamp is looking for a roadmap that extends beyond January.
Ondrej and Tris20 join the discussion, with Ondrej suggesting that a development timeline could be useful, citing an example from a game he plays. Tris20 raises concerns about the potential drawbacks of a public roadmap, including loss of flexibility and exploratory safety.
However, ondrej counters that a timeline doesn’t need to be swayed by users, and ganncamp clarifies that they’re not asking for concrete expectations and obligations, but rather a general outline of planned areas of focus.
Nat eventually closes the topic, pointing to a separate thread that outlines current projects as of September 2024.
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We do have something lightweight:
is this what you’re thinking about?
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This is helpful. And I was hoping for something both longer term and broader, outlining general direction for the product.
Like, do you see the need to work on
- Admin UX [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] (looks like some of this may be in 3.2…)
- Settings [1, 2] (ditto?)
- Notifications [1, 2]
- Assignments [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]
- Leaderboard [1, 2]
It would let me know what I should 'bate my breath for and what I should lobby harder for 
(or find budget $ for).
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In that topic I feel like we’re highlighting our direction for the foreseeable future. In brief we have areas we care about:
- our admins (staff experience and AI),
- our communities (chat and AI),
- communities in the wild (migrations),
- and our plugin/theme authors (modernJS and platform)
I get the feeling you’re looking for something else perhaps?
Just acknowledging that we’ve seen these quality of life requests. Thank you for writing them, it will help as more folks find them and +1. It’s no secret we’re strong proponents of The Rule of Three (tldr at the bottom of the post) – it makes it easier for us to prioritise work that helps many people with the same problem.
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I was hoping for something past January 
But okay. Thanks
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Ah alright. Thanks for the reply. But yes, it would be nice to see a ‘deeper’ glimpse into what’s being planned 
On a game I play they have a development timeline which shows what they are planning. They don’t post too far ahead for example they don’t post what to expect in 2024 but some stuff to look forwards to in the first update of 2024. This could always be scaled to show more long term plans?
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I would also love a better insight into the timeline, however I understand if there is a desire to keep certain cards closer to the chest.
A common issue with timelines is the concrete expectation and obligations they can create. This can be strategically disadvantageous because you’re losing the flexibility to pivot on a dime towards something significant like AI when such an opportunity arises. Of course you could negotiate such a change with customers and users, however that takes very significant effort.
In my experience, this effort often slows down the attainment of both the original commitment and the new opportunity.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of the additional effort prematurely publicising certain ideas can create:
- Bikeshedding
- Analysis Paralysis
- Abilene Paradox
- Law of the Instrument
- Dilutiuon of Idea complexity to cater for the least skilled/qualified stakeholders (Which can lead to nasty cases of the Dunning Kruger Effect)
- Cognitive Overload – too many ideas, too much feedback
- False Consensus
- Blind leading the blind
and most importantly Authority Dilution. The team know best, but the public can be very passionate about going in the wrong direction sometimes.
Overall, I would be concerned about the loss of flexibility and exploratory safety such a roadmap could cause, as much as I would love to have one.
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I liked your deep dive into this. I didn’t think of potential issues in such detail. However, I think whilst you raise good points the timeline doesn’t need to be ‘swayed’ by users - like you say the Team know best.
I agree with this. As a result of this, in the community I linked above they changed the way they ship updates. They don’t give out release dates its all soon™ This way you still get to see plans on what is being made etc but you just have to wait it out.
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To be clear, I’m not asking for “concrete expectation[s] and obligations”.
I was hoping for something like
In 2024 we plan to work on these areas:
- foo
- bar
- baz
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@ganncamp have you seen this - Current Projects - September 2024 
I’ll close this topic in favour of that!
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