Add mentored contribution guide

docs/source/guidelines/index.md → docs/source/get-involved/development_guidelines.md

@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
-# Development guidelines
+# General development guidelines
 
 All our software is built as a team, and this means we must agree on some development conventions. This page 
 covers our internal development guidelines, which we hope are also useful to external contributors.
 
 
-## General guidelines
+## General principles
 
 * All projects will use [Git](https://git-scm.com/) for version control and [GitHub](https://github.com/) for hosting.
 
@@ -95,9 +95,3 @@ help standardise how we categorise issues. As a general rule, `critical` issues
 | good first issue      | Good for newcomers                     |
 | question              | Further information is requested       |
 | wontfix               | This will not be worked on             |
-
-## Further details
-```{toctree}
-:maxdepth: 2
-languages_frameworks
-```

docs/source/get-involved/index.md

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+# Get involved
+We always welcome contributions to all of our software, whether from experienced developers, or researchers looking 
+to make their first open-source contribution. 
+
+Many of our projects are quite large and the software is used by researchers around the world. For this reason, all 
+contributions go through a review process to make sure that they are necessary, useful, correct and complete. This 
+"code review" process can often be daunting to first time contributors. It is often not difficult to meet these criteria,
+but it can be _complicated_. 
+
+For this reason we have written some documents to outline the processes we use, so hopefully they aren't so opaque. 
+We are also happy to guide new contributors through the process. For more details please see 
+[details about mentored open source contributions](mentoring).
+
+## Further details
+```{toctree}
+:maxdepth: 1
+development_guidelines
+languages_frameworks
+mentoring
+```

docs/source/get-involved/mentoring.md

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+# Mentored open-source contributions
+
+Contributing to open-source software can be complicated, even if you're an experienced programmer 
+(and even more so if you're not!). Contributions to open-source scientific software come in many forms, and often the 
+most valuable contributions come from those who aren't (or who wouldn't call themselves) software developers.
+
+For this reason, we offer what we call a "mentored open-source contribution" model. If you're interested in contributing
+to our tools in any way, we will help you through the process, teaching you some of the basics of software 
+engineering as we go. The exact model varies on the individual, but may look something like:
+
+1. We make initial contact and discuss your aims. Maybe you want to adapt one of our tools to your needs, or maybe you 
+want to transition to research software engineering.
+2. We have a quick call to identify a small, well described piece of work for you to start on 
+(typically an open GitHub issue).
+3. We go through the contribution process with you.
+4. You begin tackling the project at your own pace, and begin the code review process.
+5. We help you out where needed, either asynchronously (GitHub, Zulip) or synchronously (e.g. Zoom).
+6. Your contribution is merged.
+7. Ideally, we repeat the steps and you gradually work independently on open source.
+
+Importantly, this is not an internship, there is no obligation on either side. It is also not a promise of help.
+Anyone is welcome to contribute to any of our tools, and we will always aim to help people make this step. 
+Unfortunately, we're busy and may not be able to guide everyone through the process. 
+
+If this sounds of interest, please get in touch with us either via [Zulip](https://neuroinformatics.zulipchat.com/) 
+or by <a href="mailto:[email protected] ?subject=Mentored open-source contributions ">emailing Adam Tyson</a>.

docs/source/index.md

@@ -57,6 +57,6 @@ people
 projects
 collaborations
 blog/index
+get-involved/index
 resources
-guidelines/index
 ```