Adding a new dummy "N.x dev" release for the core issue queue

Once the code freeze hits each new version of Drupal core, there's always a desire for creating a placeholder release for the *next* version of core so that issues that aren't going to be considered in the freeze can be reclassified. For example, at the time of this writing, the D7 code freeze just hit and people wanted a "8.x-dev" option in the core issue queue (see #566306: Add 8.x to Drupal project version dropdown for more). These steps can be followed by someone with elevated administration permissions on drupal.org (you need at least 'administer taxonomy' and 'administer projects'). The examples here are for creating the 8.x-dev release, but the same instructions should work for future versions (9.x-dev, 10.x-dev, etc).

1. Add a new "8.x" term to the "Core compatibility" vocab at http://drupal.org/admin/content/taxonomy/6/add/term (or wherever that page is moved in D7)
2. Add a dummy CVS tag for core. In this case, I just did this from the mysql prompt:
   
   INSERT INTO cvs_tags (nid, tag, branch, timestamp) VALUES (3060, '_HEAD_', 1, UNIX_TIMESTAMP());
   
   In fact, we can just leave that dummy tag in there, so this step probably won't be needed in the future...
3. Add a release node pointing to this branch at http://drupal.org/node/add/project-release/3060 -- the version string will be all fubar when you first create it, since it's going to be confused by the non-standard CVS branch name, but that's okay -- you'll fix it before it's published. Just save the node and leave things broken for now.
4. Edit the new unpublished release node. If you have "administer projects" perms, you'll be able to tweak all the version string related fields. For this dummy core release, you want the following:
   

   Title

   drupal 8.x-dev

   Version string

   8.x-dev

   Core compatibility

   8.x

   Major

   8

   Minor

   (empty)

   Patch level

   (empty)

   Extra identifier

   dev

5. Make sure everything looks reasonable, then publish the node