Merge pull request #189 from amperser/contributing

Contributing recommendations

site/_posts/2014-06-10-approach.md

@@ -6,6 +6,10 @@ summary:    An API for proselint.
 categories: proselint api
 ---
 
+Writing is notoriously hard, even for the best writers. Yet there is a tremendous amount of knowledge about the discipline strewn across usage guides, dictionaries, technical manuals, essays, pamphlets, websites, and the hearts and minds of great authors and editors. But poring over Strunk & White hardly makes one a better writers — it turns you into neither Strunk nor White. And nobody has the willpower (nor the time, memory, or desire) to do what is necessary to apply all the advice from Garner’s Modern American Usage, a 975-page usage guide, to everything that they write. The format of the knowledge is essentially inert, and the method of adoption demanded by that format — reading the advice and, in doing so, becoming a better writer — rests on assumptions about learning and memory that are untenable.
+
+By considering the learner’s cognitive constraints, we devised a solution: <tt>proselint</tt>, a linter for prose. (A linter is a computer program that, like spellcheck, scans through a document and analyzes it.)
+
 <p>Is <tt>proselint</tt> yet another awful grammar checker?</p>
 <p><em>No</em>. Here&rsquo;s why not:</p>
 <ol>

site/_posts/2015-09-25-contributing.md

@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+---
+layout:     post
+title:      How to contribute
+date:       2014-06-10 12:31:19
+summary:    How to contribute to Proselint.
+categories: proselint contributors
+---
+
+Interested in contributing to <tt>proselint</tt>? Great &mdash; there are plenty of ways you can help. In the following sections, we describe how you can help us build <tt>proselint</tt> into the greatest writing tool in the world.
+
+## Coding
+Have coding skills? You can:
+
++ Implement a new piece of advice. In our issue tracker, we maintain an ever-growing [list of rules](https://github.com/amperser/proselint/labels/rule) that have been extracted from expert advice on writing. Some of these are one-liners; others are research projects (see ). Use our templates to create a check that implements the advice. Then open a pull request.
++ Create a plugin for a new text editor. We currently have a plugin for Sublime Text plugin and a web editor. Many [more are needed](https://github.com/amperser/proselint/labels/plugin), most notably Microsoft Word, emacs, vim, and Google Docs.
++ Fix [bugs](https://github.com/amperser/proselint/labels/bug).
++ Improve [performance](https://github.com/amperser/proselint/labels/speed).
++ Write tests. Our test coverage is too low.
+
+## Writing and editing
+Have writing or editing skills? You can:
+
++ Extract rules from expert sources of advice. Read through some entries of a book like *Garners Modern American Usage* find rules that are feasible to implement in code, and then [open an issue on Github](https://github.com/amperser/proselint/issues/new). Here's an [example](https://github.com/amperser/proselint/issues/163) of a successfully extracted rule. And here's a list of [sources](https://github.com/amperser/proselint/labels/extraction) from which rules can be extracted.
++ Find false alarms. Run <tt>proselint</tt> over your favorite books or magazine articles — maybe even some of your own writing, and find places where <tt>proselint</tt> says that there is an error, but in reality, there is none. [open an issue on Github] describing the problem.
++ Improve the copy on this website or write documentation in the code.
+
+## Donations
+Looking to donate to an open-source software and research project? We accept.
+
++ Donate via [PayPal](https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/donations).
+
+<hr/>
+
+For questions and feature requests, write to us at <a href="mailto:hello@proselint.com">hello@proselint.com</a>.