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+# Welcome!
+
+If you are reading this document then you are interested in contributing to the warcbase or warcbase workshop project. All contributions are welcome: use-cases, documentation, code, patches, bug reports, feature requests, etc. You do not need to be a programmer to speak up!
+
+### Use cases
+
+If you would like to submit a use case for the warcbase project, please submit and issue [here](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/issues/new), assigning the "use case" label to the issue.
+
+### Documentation
+
+You can contribute documentation in two different ways. One way is to create an issue [here](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/issues/new) assign the "documentation" label to the issue. 
+
+We also do have a [warcbase-docs](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase-docs) repository. You can fork and do a Pull Request. All documentation resides in [`docs`](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase-docs/tree/master/docs).
+
+### Request a new feature
+
+To request a new feature you should [open an issue](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/issues/new) or create a use case as described above (see _use case_ section above), and summarize the desired functionality. Select the label "enhancement" if creating an issue on the project repo.
+
+### Report a bug
+
+To report a bug you should [open an issue](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/issues/new) that summarizes the bug. Set the label to "bug".
+
+In order to help us understand and fix the bug it would be great if you could provide us with:
+
+1. The steps to reproduce the bug. This includes information about e.g. the warcbase version you were using, whether on a single node or cluster, etc.
+2. The expected behavior.
+3. The actual, incorrect behavior.
+
+Feel free to search the issue queue for existing issues (aka tickets) that already describe the problem; if there is such a ticket please add your information as a comment.
+
+### Contribute code
+
+_If you are interested in contributing code to Warcbase but do not know where to begin:_
+
+In this case you should [browse open issues](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/issues), and or [use cases](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/labels/use%20case).
+
+Contributions to the Warcbase codebase should be sent as GitHub pull requests. See section _Create a pull request_ below for details. If there is any problem with the pull request we can work through it using the commenting features of GitHub.
+
+* For _small patches_, feel free to submit pull requests directly for those patches.
+* For _larger code contributions_, please use the following process. The idea behind this process is to prevent any wasted work and catch design issues early on.
+
+    1. [Open an issue](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/issues) and assign it the label of "enhancement", if a similar issue does not exist already. If a similar issue does exist, then you may consider participating in the work on the existing issue.
+    2. Comment on the issue with your plan for implementing the issue. Explain what pieces of the codebase you are going to touch and how everything is going to fit together.
+    3. Warcbase committers will work with you on the design to make sure you are on the right track.
+    4. Implement your issue, create a pull request (see below), and iterate from there.
+
+### Create a pull request
+
+Take a look at [Creating a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). In a nutshell you need to:
+
+1. [Fork](https://help.github.com/articles/fork-a-repo) the warcbase GitHub repository at [https://github.com/lintool/warcbase](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase) to your personal GitHub account. 
+2. Commit any changes to your fork.
+3. Send a [pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request) to the warcbase GitHub repository that you forked in step 1.  If your pull request is related to an existing issue -- for instance, because you reported a [bug/issue](https://github.com/lintool/warcbase/issues) earlier -- prefix the title of your pull request with the corresponding issue number (e.g. `issue-123: ...`). Please also include a reference to the issue in the description of the pull. This can be done by using '#' plus the issue number like so '#123', also try to pick an appropriate name for the branch in which you're issuing the pull request from. 
+
+You may want to read [Syncing a fork](https://help.github.com/articles/syncing-a-fork) for instructions on how to keep your fork up to date with the latest changes of the upstream (official) `warcbase` repository.