Merge pull request #855 from stevecrozz/new-contribution-guidelines

new contribution guidelines

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+# Contributing to Errbit
+
+Thanks for your interest in improving Errbit. We'd love to have you as a
+contributor. Guidelines for contributing code to Errbit depend on the
+nature of your contribution. If your contribution adds a new feature to
+Errbit, the section on 'Feature Requests' does apply. Otherwise, just
+follow the guidelines under 'All Contributions' below.
+
+## All Contributions
+
+All code change contributions should be made through the following steps:
+
+1. Fork errbit/errbit on GitHub
+2. Create a branch with a descriptive name
+3. Make your changes
+4. If your change is non-trivial, add it to the CHANGELOG.md file
+5. Submit a pull request with a clear explanation of what you have
+   changed and why
+
+For code changes:
+- Update the tests to prevent regressions and prove your changes work
+- Update the documentation in the `docs/` folder
+- For anything that should be configurable, use environment variables and
+  update the [configuration documentation](docs/configuration.md)
+
+## Feature Requests
+
+If you'd like to add a feature to Errbit, please start by opening an
+issue on GitHub with a description of what you'd like to add and why. If
+your feature requires a deeper level of discussion, join the #errbit IRC
+channel on freenode to talk it over with the other maintainers.
+
+In general, new features should add value without detracting
+significantly from usability, security, performance, ease of deployment
+and maintainability. Keep in mind that by putting in a pull request for
+a new feature, you are asking other people to maintain your code
+indefinitely. Your feature is more likely to become part of Errbit if it
+appears easy to maintain and if you are able to help maintain it.
+
+Errbit maintainers do review all contributions, but certain kinds of
+contributions take priority. Security-related changes, bug fixes, test
+improvements, documentation improvements, and usability enhancements all
+take priority over feature requests. But we are open to adding new
+features, so if you have a good one in mind, just open a GitHub issue so
+we can start a conversation.

README.md

@@ -440,38 +440,20 @@ Special Thanks
 * [Relevance](http://thinkrelevance.com) - For giving me Open-source Fridays to work on Errbit and all my awesome co-workers for giving feedback and inspiration.
 * [Thoughtbot](http://thoughtbot.com) - For being great open-source advocates and setting the bar with [Airbrake](http://airbrake.io).
 
-See the [contributors graph](https://github.com/errbit/errbit/graphs/contributors) for further details. You can see another list of Contributors by release version on [CONTRIBUTORS.md]
+See the [contributors graph](https://github.com/errbit/errbit/graphs/contributors) for further details.
 
 
 Contributing to Errbit
 ------------
 
-We welcome any contributions. If you need to tweak Errbit for your organization's needs,
-there are probably other users who will appreciate your work.
-Please try to determine whether or not your feature should be **global** or **optional**,
-and make **optional** features configurable via environment variables.
+See the [contribution guidelines](CONTRIBUTING.md)
 
-**Examples of optional features:**
-
-* Enable / disable user comments on errors.
-* Adding a `username` field to the User model.
-
-**How to contribute:**
-
-* Fork the project.
-* Make your feature addition or bug fix.
-* Add tests for it. This is important so we don't break it in a future version unintentionally.
-* Commit, do not mess with Rakefile, version, or history. (if you want to have your own version, that is fine but bump version in a commit by itself we can ignore when we pull)
-* Send us a pull request. Bonus points for topic branches.
-* Add you on the CONTRIBUTORS.md file on the current release
-
-# Running tests
-
-More information can be found in the  [**Errbit Advanced Developer Guide**](docs/DEVELOPER-ADVANCED.md)
+Running tests
+-------------
 
+Check the .travis.yml file to see how tests are run
 
 Copyright
 ---------
 
 Copyright (c) 2010-2014 Errbit Team. See LICENSE for details.
-