@@ -1,6 +1,64 @@
11Contributing to pandoc
22======================
33
4+Welcome to pandoc! Very soon after its beginnings in 2006, pandoc
5+has been influenced, improved, and modified, by users, devs, and
6+newcomers alike. The project thrives on its active community. It is
7+great to have you here.
8+
9+How can I help?
10+---------------
11+
12+There are many ways in which you can support pandoc. Here are a few
13+ideas:
14+
15+ * Participate in online discussions. The [pandoc-discuss] mailing
16+ list is a good place for this. This gives valuable input and
17+ makes it easier to improve the program.
18+
19+ * Help with questions. Every request that is answered by the wider
20+ community frees time for programming contributors. This will
21+ speed up development of new features and issue fixes. Don't
22+ underestimate your knowledge, please share it!
23+
24+ Good places to help are the [pandoc-discuss] mailing list, Q/A
25+ sites like StackOverflow, community forums (e.g.
26+ [RStudio][RStudio Community], [Zettlr][Zettlr Forum]), and, for
27+ technical questions, the GitHub [issue tracker].
28+
29+ * Write or improve documentation. If you ran into a problem which
30+ took more time to figure out than expected, please consider to
31+ save other users from the same experience. People writing the
32+ documentation tend to lack an outside few, so please help
33+ provide one. Good documentation is both difficult and extremely
34+ important.
35+
36+ The official docs are not the only place for documentation.
37+ Pandoc also has a [Wiki][pandoc wiki]. Private blogs can serve
38+ as documentation just as the official manual can.
39+
40+ * Contribute code. No matter whether it's a small fix in a format
41+ template or a huge lump of Haskell code: help is welcome. It's
42+ usually a good idea to talk about the plans early, as this can
43+ prevent unnecessary work. See below for more information.
44+
45+ * Last but not least: consider funding the development and
46+ maintenance of pandoc financially. You can find sponsor buttons
47+ on the [pandoc website] and the [GitHub repository][GitHub
48+ repo].
49+
50+A rich ecosystem of libraries, editors, filters, and templates has
51+developed around pandoc; conversely, pandoc builds and depends on a
52+large number of libraries. Contributing to any of these projects is
53+another way that can help to ensure stability, and to keep pushing
54+the boundaries of what is possible with pandoc.
55+
56+[RStudio Community]: https://community.rstudio.com/
57+[Zettlr Forum]: https://forum.zettlr.com/
58+[pandoc wiki]: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc/wiki
59+[pandoc website]: https://pandoc.org
60+[GitHub repo]: https://github.com/jgm/pandoc
61+
462Have a question?
563----------------
664
@@ -105,7 +163,12 @@ Explain the rationale for the feature you're requesting. Why would this
105163feature be useful? Consider also any possible drawbacks, including backwards
106164compatibility, new library dependencies, and performance issues.
107165
108−It is best to discuss a potential new feature on [pandoc-discuss]
166+Features are very rarely "implement and forget", as all code must be
167+maintained. This is especially relevant for large or complex
168+contributions. It is helpful to be sympathetic to that fact, and to
169+communicate future plans and availability clearly.
170+
171+Any potential new feature is best discussed on [pandoc-discuss]
109172before opening an issue.
110173
111174Patches and pull requests
@@ -258,10 +321,10 @@ a ghci REPL for working with pandoc. With [stack], use
258321We recommend using the following `.ghci` file (which can be
259322placed in the source directory):
260323
261− :set -fobject-code
262− :set -XTypeSynonymInstances
263− :set -XScopedTypeVariables
264− :set -XOverloadedStrings
324+ :set -fobject-code
325+ :set -XTypeSynonymInstances
326+ :set -XScopedTypeVariables
327+ :set -XOverloadedStrings
265328
266329Profiling
267330---------