diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index b1051998..85822984 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -1,8 +1,22 @@
 # Contributing Guidelines #
 
 Thanks for contributing to SmartStack!
-If you're opening a new PR, please ask for a merge into our `pull_requests` branch -- *not* `master`.
-This will allow us avoid a back-and-forth by quickly accepting your PR and then making minor changes or doing testing before merging into `master`.
+
+If you are opening a new PR, please ask for a merge into the `master` branch.
+
+## Writing Reporters ##
+Nerve supports *pluggable* reporters, which means that you can easily add
+a reporter by making your own gem that contains your reporter available for
+require at ``nerve/reporter/#{name.downcase}``. If you do this please do
+submit a PR with a link to your gem/repo and we can reference it from the
+README.
+
+In general it is preferred to keep reporters that require specific dependencies
+out of nerve because that way you can select the version of dependencies that
+you need (for example if you have a particular version of the docker api or
+etcd). That being said, if your reporter has no external dependencies
+(e.g. files) or is extremely common (e.g. zookeeper, etcd), we may choose to
+support it in the repo itself.
 
 ## Writing Checks ##
 
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 393c59fc..0f02588a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -19,17 +19,27 @@ The information it reports can be used to take action from a centralized automat
 
 ## Installation ##
 
-Add this line to your application's Gemfile:
-
-    gem 'nerve'
-
-And then execute:
-
-    $ bundle
-
-Or install it yourself as:
-
-    $ gem install nerve
+To download and run the nerve binary, first install a version of ruby. Then,
+install nerve with:
+
+```bash
+$ mkdir -p /opt/smartstack/nerve
+
+# If you want to install specific versions of dependencies such as an older
+# version of the aws-sdk, the docker-api, etc, gem install that here *before*
+# gem installing nerve. This is also where you would gem install
+# custom reporters.
+
+# If you are on Ruby 2.X use --no-document instead of --no-ri --no-rdoc
+$ gem install nerve --install-dir /opt/smartstack/nerve --no-ri --no-rdoc
+```
+
+This will download nerve and its dependencies into /opt/smartstack/nerve. You
+might wish to omit the `--install-dir` flag to use your system's default gem
+path, however this will require you to run `gem install nerve` with root
+permissions. You can also install via bundler, but keep in mind you'll pick up
+Nerve's version of library dependencies and possibly not the ones you need
+for your infra/apps.
 
 ## Configuration ##