what do all the new bug tracker statuses mean? Are they just different cryptic categories of wishlist or something more exciting?
- @Layershift (via Twitter)
If you haven’t stopped by the Roadmap/Wishlist lately, this is what Layershift is talking about:

Previously, we had one category called “Wishlist” that contained everything else beyond the current release. The problem with that approach was we had to dig through the entire wishlist every time we started a new release, even though we knew that some of the items weren’t immediately actionable regardless of how many votes they had.
We also started to have issues from a vocal minority of users (who are passionate enough to care; and we love them for it) who were frustrated that their requests were occasionally pushed from release to next release through several updates. That was happening because we kept the most interesting feedback — far more than we could possibly do in one update — assigned to the current release so we wouldn’t lose track of it at the bottom of the wishlist. We wanted to be aware of those things as we decided where to draw the line for each update; and we chose between those items, released the update, and moved the unfinished tasks into the next update to repeat the process.
To set people’s expectations a bit better, we’ve removed the nebulous “Wishlist” category and we’ve added a few more. We had a little fun with the new category names; because, frankly, sorting through 500+ requests every couple days can be a tedious affair. We did add some illustrative descriptions to the categories, but JIRA (the software that runs the roadmap/wishlist) doesn’t actually display them where people would notice them.
Here are the missing descriptions:

Rather than gathering *all* the best ideas into the next release, we’ll be using The Yellow Brick Superhighway category to keep track of them. Those are the ideas that expand the project’s reach; such as expanding the platform (what plugins are capable of) or core functionality. These are the things we lose sleep over until they’re done.
The Sea of 1000 Wishes category is the incubator for new requests, where they receive comments and votes until they move to the near-future roadmap. It includes everything from big ideas to “It would be nice if you moved this button 3 pixels to the left”. I wouldn’t take the sarcastic category description too seriously, as everything on that list is something we’re committed to doing if enough people ask for it.
Cryostasis is a category we’ve needed for a while to contain great ideas that just aren’t possible at the moment. In many cases the ideas may seem simple enough, but there’s something we’d like to do with the platform (such as switching to jQuery, or performing a refactor that affects the API) that would make the requests much easier to do properly.
With Everything Looks Like a Nail, we’re finally able to sort out all the good ideas that we just don’t see ourselves making a mandatory part of Cerb4’s core. This includes everything from “I want a live chat feature” to very subjective workflow tweaks. We built Cerb4 on top of our Devblocks framework so we could deliver tweaks and features to segments of users — or even to individuals — without making a mess of the app and forcing an amalgamation of 1000 opinions on everyone; pleasing no-one. Because of its subjectivity, this is the best category for sponsors to pay for the development of things they want to get them done immediately.
And lastly, An Ounce of Prevention is the category where we’re quarantining ideas that introduce too much complexity or that go against the spirit of the project; such as: locking things down to the point it hurts collaboration, editing customer email after the fact, making tickets parents of other tickets, etc. We’re keeping those requests here in the open rather than deleting them so people are free to build their case in support of them. This helps us manage expectations; so people don’t see one request sitting untouched for a year and think everything is neglected that way.
Ultimately, we have some big ideas for transforming the Roadmap/Wishlist into a far more interactive community meeting place.
Thoughts?
-Jeff@WGM