I find that the JIRA upgrade guide ("Upgrading JIRA Safely"), while improved in Rosie's recent changes (JRA-13326), could be simplified a little more. I suggest we separate out the "safety" points such as:

• make sure you backup your database
• try the upgrade on a test database before putting it in production
• test on JIRA Standalone first even if you are using JIRA EAR/WAR

to a section up front. Then don't have them in the instructions that follow on how to actually do the upgrade. If I were a system administrator, as would like to read just what the steps of the upgrade are, without getting confused by, for example, steps for JIRA Standalone even if I am installing JIRA EAR/WAR.

I am happy to spend whatever time necessary with you on this.

It would be great to have this done in time for JIRA 4.0.