finishing contributor guidelines

.github/CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,5 +1,4 @@
-CONTRIBUTING GUIDELINES FOR TTBP
-================================
+# CONTRIBUTING GUIDELINES FOR TTBP
 
 Hi! Thanks for your interest in working on this project with me!
 
@@ -8,4 +7,56 @@ to; this is because I am not a very experienced developer, and I'm still
 learning good practices for facilitating collaborative dev work. I'm open to
 receiving feedback and discussion even if you're new to writing Python,
 programming, or collaborative work in general, but I'd appreciate some extra
-patience and slack.
+patience and open communication.
+
+In general, please try to give me a heads up if you're intending to do work on
+this codebase before either starting on it or submitting a PR. I'm fairly
+self-conscious about my code, so I want the best opportunity for respectful
+engagement, which lets me learn from my mistakes while still providing good
+software for end users.
+
+## Contacting Me
+
+You can send me tildemail at ~endorphant on tilde.town, or catch me in IRC
+(please send me a PM there, since I don't often monitor the main channel). I
+might not respond for a few days; this is normal! If you're feeling ignored,
+please feel free to open an issue in this repo, since that will ping my personal
+email directly, and we can catch up then.
+
+## Bugs
+
+If you find a bug (such as: ttbp crashed while you were running it, an
+unexpected behavior happened, etc.), please feel free to file an issue with this
+repo. You can also send me tildemail. Be as descriptive as possible! Describe
+the last few things that happened, if you remember them, and attach some
+representation of the bug (copy and paste the terminal output, or take a
+screenshot).
+
+If you can fix a bug that you found, please document the bug first by opening an
+issue, and check in with me before you start working on it. If there's a serious
+use-breaking bug in the current live code, and I'm unreachable for more than a
+few days, go ahead and fix it and send a PR, and I'll get to it when I can.
+
+## Features
+
+If there's a new feature you're interested in, please check the list of issues
+and see if it's been discussed before (including in closed issues). You're
+welcome to open a new issue if it seems like there isn't any history about your
+idea, and you can also send me tildemail to ask me about it.
+
+Please do not start coding new features without discussing your ideas with me
+first. I have some fairly strong ideas about how ttbp should work, and I don't
+want anyone to waste their time building new features that don't align with my
+vision for this project. That said, I'm definitely interested in hearing your
+ideas, and I'll do my best to communicate my philosophy regardless of if I
+greenlight your feature or not.
+
+## Cosmetic Changes
+
+Please do not open PRs for cosmetic changes to the codebase if we haven't had a
+prior discussion about it. Cosmetic changes include things like whitespace,
+commenting/documentation, naming conventions, and other aspects of the codebase
+that would not affect end users if changed. I am cautiously open to receiving
+respectful feedback about my general coding style, but I'm not generally
+interested in having unsolicited style critiqued, or for coding conventions
+dictated to me. Thank you in advance for your understanding!