After seeing this topic by accidently:
https://discuss.flarum.org/d/31999-critical-security-update-to-flarum-core-v162

I am thinking about why Flarum's team just didn't add some notification center for these kind of important messages in admin panel?. I just came to forum to check if there is new extensions or not, then i just see this topic and find out what is going on.

Is not better to add a information bar in admin panel and notice us about new versions of Flarum?!

If i didn't saw this topic, maybe never noticed about this.

Flarum's team just can use this feature for important news about Flarum (Of course please don't use it for showing ADS!)

    masihdindar I’ve also been thinking that something like this would be extremely useful as well. Some sort of federated announcements channel which can be enabled/disabled.

    Perhaps with the option for admins to receive an email notification as well.

        IanM Yes that would be useful.

        Umutcan That's what the mercury extension is for.

        I have this extension, But i can't see announcements in that, do you? I mean some news, announcements, Security bug fixes, extension promote, etc can be show to admin in admin panel.
        I just saw there is new update 1.6.2 in extiverse and thought it's just a normal update. But accidently checked forum and found out it's very important update. I usually upgrade my forum after 1 or 2 weeks and let another extensions update themselves if there is incompatible issue in them.
        But after seeing what is going on in v1.6.2, I just upgraded my forum asap.
        So this is why i'm asking for this feature.

              IanM IMHO: I don’t know if it would be a good idea but if we could somehow enable the Mercury extension to receive alerts for critical and regular updates from the Flarum core team then have it forwarded to the user admins (via email and banners?) since that extension already checks if your extensions (and/or core?) are updated to the latest version or not. 🙂

                  Lurker Mercury does offer a basic notification system for available extension updates, but that does not extend to flarum/core itself. Covering core updates is quite possible to add however.

                  What it does not offer, is a channel for the core team to be able to push any text or convey any sort of urgency along with it, it simply checks packagist/extiverse every so often to see if a new release is available.

                  AFAIK there are no concrete plans yet, but I do know we are considering retiring the mercury extension in it's current form and merging some of it's functionality into the upcoming package manager.