Joy
(@joyously)
For major releases, I read the release notes and see if I want those things. If so, I usually wait until there is a minor release, and install that. By waiting for the minor release, I get the fixes for the inevitable bugs that slip through when creating new features.
I let WP minor releases install automatically because they are usually security related, and they do not contain new files. In other words, they chose to make it a minor release so that the automatic updates won’t hurt existing sites.
For plugins, it’s the same thing only the change log often isn’t very descriptive.
But I have scheduled backups made, so I can always restore if the update crashes the site. (I visit the front end after updating, to ensure the site is working.)
You can subscribe to the core blog here: https://make.wordpress.org/core/
This has all the posts about releases, but it also has various team’s communications also.
If you are still on 4.8.x, be aware that there was a minor release that had a problem with checking for updates, so the users that were on that one are never notified of all the minor releases since then. (not sure if they get the majors)
