Have become very common for us. Probably because the release VOTE is the thing that actually gets people motivated to take a good look.
Thought it'd be good for us to discuss this practice. My thoughts: - I think it still makes sense to DISCUSS before starting a release - I think it's perfectly reasonable to go through several RCs as things come up during testing (RCs are easy) - I think it helps to have the blog post ready before a vote (I made this change to the platforms release process this time around) - I don't have any problem with VOTE threads that are full of discussion. What's the concern?
