Okay, so it looks like Saturday/Sunday would be the best option. But, rather than rush through and implement this RIGHT NOW, I want to wait until next weekend to implement the change, so folks have more working, and more chances to register an opinion on the matter.
How about scheduling this for Jan 15th, 2012 00:00 UTC (or thereabouts)? That's Saturday evening for the Americas, early Sunday for Europe and India, and mid-day Sunday in Australia/New Zealand (assuming I got my time conversions right...)
The scheduled actions will be as follows:
1. Add new Statuses to Status Workflow
2. Turn off bug emails
3. Bulk edit all tickets with Patch Status values to have the corresponding Status; note this will only apply to OPEN bug reports
4. Alter the canned searches to make use of the Status instead of Patch Status
5. Reactivate bug emails
6. Update community documentation where appropriate, and notify everyone of the change on list
Are there any other bulk editing actions we'd like to add to this 'emailless' window of time?
Cheers,