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+# Contributing to BurnMan
+BurnMan is a community project that lives by the participation of its
+members — i.e., including you! It is our goal to build an inclusive
+and participatory community so we are happy that you are interested in
+participating! 
+
+## Getting started with git and GitHub
+GitHub provides a helpful
+guide on the process of contributing to an open-source project
+[here](https://opensource.guide/how-to-contribute/).
+
+## Asking and answering questions about BurnMan
+For questions about BurnMan on all levels, please use the 
+[BurnMan forum](https://community.geodynamics.org/c/burnman).
+
+## Bug reports
+It is a great help to the community if you report any bugs that you
+may find. We keep track of all open issues related to BurnMan
+[here](https://github.com/geodynamics/burnman/issues). 
+
+Please follow these simple instructions before opening a new bug report:
+
+- Do a quick search in the list of open and closed issues for a duplicate of
+  your issue.
+- If you did not find an answer, open a new
+  [issue](https://github.com/geodynamics/burnman/issues/new) and explain your
+  problem in as much detail as possible.
+- Attach as much as possible of the following information to your issue:
+  - a minimal script that reproduces the issue,
+  - the error message you saw on your screen,
+  - any information that helps us understand why you think this is a bug, and
+    how to reproduce it.
+
+## Making BurnMan better
+BurnMan is a community project, and we are encouraging all kinds of
+contributions. Obvious candidates are bugfixes and implementations of new datasets or
+fitting routines. Other much appreciated contributions are new examples,
+tests, benchmarks, fixing typos or updating outdated documentation. 
+If you consider making a large addition or change to core functionality,
+please open a new [issue](https://github.com/geodynamics/burnman/issues/new)
+first, to discuss your idea with one of the maintainers. This allows us to give you early
+feedback and prevents you from spending much time on a project that might already be
+planned, or that conflicts with other plans.
+
+### Opening pull requests
+
+To make a change to BurnMan you should:
+- Create a
+[fork](https://guides.github.com/activities/forking/#fork) (through GitHub) of
+the code base.
+- Create a new
+[branch](https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/) (sometimes called a
+feature branch) on which to make your modifications.
+- You can propose that your branch be merged into the BurnMan
+code by opening a [pull request](https://guides.github.com/introduction/flow/).
+This will give others a chance to review your code. 
+
+We follow the philosophy that no pull request (independent of the author) is
+merged without a review from one other member of the community, and approval of
+one of the maintainers. This applies to maintainers as well as to first-time
+contributors. We know that review can be a daunting process, but pledge to
+keep all comments friendly and supportive. We are as
+interested in making BurnMan better as you are!
+
+While this seems very
+formal, keeping all of the code review in one place makes it easier to
+coordinate changes to the code. Please do
+not hesitate to ask questions about the workflow on the forum if you are
+not sure what to do.
+
+### Coding conventions
+
+Since BurnMan is a growing project with several contributors we
+use [black](https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/)
+to keep the style of the source code
+consistent. See the [project file](pyproject.toml) for the most recent version.
+Indentation and other code standardisation is achieved by running the
+[indent script](contrib/utilities/indent). If you
+are new to the project then we will work with you to ensure your contributions
+are formatted with this style, so please do not think of it as a road block if
+you would like to contribute some code.
+
+### Changelog entries
+
+If your new pull request creates a change that is noticeable to BurnMan users,
+please add a new file to our [changelog](docs/changelog) folder.
+The name of the file consists of the date of the change
+(approximately) and the name of the author. Use the existing files for a
+guide to the format. This ensures you will get credit for your work.
+
+## Acknowledgment of contributions
+
+The BurnMan community is grateful for every contribution! But, beyond
+this gratitude, there are also several *formal*
+ways in which your contribution will be acknowledged by the BurnMan community:
+- Every commit that is merged into the BurnMan repository makes you part of
+  the group of 
+  [contributors](https://github.com/geodynamics/burnman/graphs/contributors).
+- For every release the most significant entries of our
+  [changelog](docs/changelog) are selected to generate our release announcements.
+  Additionally, all entries remain available within the
+  [docs/changelog](docs/changelog) directory.
+- If you contributed a significant part of the manual, you will be listed as
+  one of the contributing authors of the manual.
+- Significant contributions will lead to your name being included in the
+  [AUTHORS](AUTHORS.md) file in the main repository. Criteria for inclusion:
+
+  - A profound understanding of BurnMan's structure and vision;
+  - A proven willingness to further the project's goals and help other users;
+  - Significant contributions to BurnMan (not necessarily only source code,
+    also mailing list advice, documentation, benchmarks, tutorials);
+  - Contributions to BurnMan for more than one year.
+
+## License
+BurnMan is published under the [GPL v2 or newer](LICENSE); while you
+will retain copyright on your contributions, all changes to the code
+must be provided under this common license.