...

In general, we've observed a timing increase in certain write operations, and a timing decrease in read operations.  We're curious why these measures changed, but they haven't changed enough to warrant concerns about release.  In the large, these deltas balance out, and average / median timings and error rates are practically unchanged.

Areas For Manual Testing

...

1. Appearance / availability / functionality of post actions and labels based on user role
   1. reporting (flagging) - always available to all users
      1. Students' reported status should only indicate whether or not they individually reported the post
      2. TAs / Mods / Admins see the reported status when any user has reported the post
      3. When TAs / Mods / Admins un-report reported posts, the changed status should take effect for all users
   2. voting - always available to all user types on threads and responses (not comments)
   3. pinning - only changeable by TAs / Mods / Admins
   4. closing - only changeable by TAs / Mods / Admins
   5. endorsing - only for responses - always changeable by TAs / Mods / Admins; for question threads, also changeable by the thread author
   6. following - available to all user types at thread level only
   7. editing and deleting - always available to TAs / Mods / Admins or the post author
2. Correct behavior for Discussion threads vs Question threads
   1. endorsement rules differ for authors - they can only endorse (mark answers) on question threads
   2. responses marked as question answers are always clearly designated as such (appear in a separate section, include answer marker and date info)
   3. answered and unanswered questions are always clearly distinguished from discussion threads in the sidebar
3. New sidebar thread list filters 
   1. Flagged thread filter is only available to TAs / Mods / Admins
   2. Unread thread filter accurately filters unread threads for the presently active user
   3. Filters correctly interact with category selection (discussion categories, "posts i'm following" filter)
   4. searches
4. Tabs vs. inline: thread display should look and behave the same in both tab and inline mode
5. AJAX - post actions (voting, pinning, following, reporting, closing) should be exercised to ensure they continue to function correctly.
   1. TBD: some way to deliberately trigger errors such that the reversion-on-error functionality can be exercised as well