From 4fa78e44209b188b2820ce881ac74b8fccc7abbd Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Oliver Kennedy <okennedy@buffalo.edu>
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 20:42:19 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] Add contribution guide

---
 CONTRIBUTING.md | 46 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 46 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 CONTRIBUTING.md

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+## The Website
+
+Data for the website comes from three places:
+* db/ : "The Database", a JSON object that provides metadata and structured 
+  representations of publications, lab member details, etc...
+* src/ : "The Website".  Files in this directory are automatically compiled
+  through a sequence of transformations (defined in `Rakefile`).  Most files
+  in this directory are in [Embedded Ruby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERuby)
+  (`.erb`) format.  
+* slides/, software/ : "The Static Content".  Files in these directories are
+  posted with no transformation or compilation.  
+
+You don't need to upload anything.  Branch the repo, commit your changes, and
+if they test successfully, create a merge request to add your changes.
+
+## The Database
+
+Much of the data that goes into the website is generated dynamically based on
+a JSON database.  The directory `db` contains a JSON object heirarchy, split 
+out into multiple files for convenience.  Directories will append to an object 
+at the same path.  For example, part of the structure is:
+* db/venues.json
+* db/venues/SIGMOD.json
+* db/venues/pVLDB.json
+The resulting database will include 
+```
+{
+  venues: {
+    "MIST" : { ... },   // From venues.json
+    ...
+    "SIGMOD" : { ... }, // From venues/SIGMOD.json
+    "pVLDB" : { ... },  // From venues/pVLDB.json
+  },
+  ...
+}
+```
+Relevant portions of the hierarchy:
+* lab:    Lab Members, Alumni, and Collaborators.  Used to generate /people, as 
+          well as URLs in any place where a lab member's name is mentioned.
+* publications: Metadata for papers that lab members have published.
+* venues: Metadata regarding conferences.  Used to generate full conference 
+          names, as well as numerous annotations for CV generation
+* people: Metadata regarding random people that may/may not be affiliated with
+          the lab.  Used primarily for CV generation
+* cv:     Data uased to generate CVs.
+