The offical GNOME 3.16 release notes can be found at https://help.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/3.16/

Upgrade instructions for port users:

Delete the old tracker package with:
# pkg delete -f tracker
And user port upgrade tool of choice to upgrade.

Thanks to Antoine Brodin for running the exp-runs.

This release was made possible by the following people:
  Gustau Perez
  Ting-Wei_Lan

PR:		201980

The schemas should be listed in GLIB_SCHEMAS instead of in the plist so the
  glib schema database can be updated on installed/removal of the package.
  This updating is done by the GLIB_SCHEMAS macro.

Make shotwell not run glib-compile-schemas in the stagedir, this has no effect.
Additional this generates the share/glib-2.0/schemas/gschemas.compiled file.
  This file is managed by the glib20 port. And has a changing checksum because
  it recompiled every time a GLIB_SCHEMAS enabled port is installed or removed.

Gnome 3.14.1 and Cinnamon 2.2.16 are supported on FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE and up.

This commit removes the old GNOME 2 desktop, bindings and some ports that
can't be compiled. A few ports where updated to more recent versions to
allow them to compile with this update.

Apart from updating ports to newer versions

GDM is more integrated with gnome-shell now, and handles several things for
the GNOME desktop such as screen locking. If you want to use GNOME 3 via
startx, you will have to add your own lock screen/screensaver. For example xscreensaver
can be used for sessions started without GDM.

Shell Extensions can be installed via https://extensions.gnome.org/ , we have
ported a few that can't be installed via this way.
The old gnome-utils and gnome-games ports where split up into single ports
and where converted to meta-ports.
gnome-terminal requires a UTF-8 locale to run, gdm handles this already, but
if you use startx you need to do this yourself.

Upgrade instructions:

Delete the old and conflicting packages:
# pkg delete clutter gnome-utils gnome-panel gnome-keyring vala-vapigen \
    guile gcalctool gnome-media libgnomekbd
# pkg delete gnome-screensaver gnome-applets bug-buddy evolution-exchange \
    evolution-webcal gnome-system-tools seahorse-plugins gnome-control-center

For package users the following lines will be enough:
# pkg upgrade
# pkg install gnome3

For ports users should do the following:
# portmaster -a
# portmaster x11/gnome3

We are currently aware of two issues. The first issue is a bug in the
file monitoring code in the glib20 port. This bug causes glib programs
to crash when files in a monitored directory are added or removed.
Upstream is aware of the problem, but since the problem is quite complex
there is no solution yet. This problem isn't restricted to BSD.

The second issue is that on certain video cards totem will display a
purple/pink overlay on the video. It not clear yet where the issues
comes from.

Major thanks goes to Gustau Perez for being a driving force behind getting
GNOME 3 up to speed again. Also thanks to Antoine Brodin for running the exp-runs.

This update was also made possible by:
	Joe Maloney
	Kris Moore
	Beeblebrox
	Ryan Lortie
	Antoine Jacoutot
	and everyone I missed