# How to contribute to the Bug BBQ?

## When does it take place?

It starts on [April 12th, 9am Eastern (US)](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=April+2018+Carpentries+Bug+BBQ+--+Start&iso=20180412T13) and ends on [April 13th, 5pm Pacific (US)](https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=April+2018+Carpentries+Bug+BBQ+--+End&iso=20180414T00) (click on the links to see these dates and times for your timezone).

We'll use [this website](https://carpentries.github.io/2018-04-bug-bbq/) to coordinate this event.

## How can I get involved?

### Find something that is broken, or that could be improved

If you find something that is broken or that could be improved in the lesson, open an issue in the GitHub repository corresponding to the lesson.

### Address an issue

Look at the list of open issues to see if there is something you can address.

### Review issues

In some cases, it can be useful to provide feedback on issues. It can help maintainers or other contributors to make a decision on how best to address this issue. Things to look for:

- can you reproduce the issue?
- is the description of the issue clear enough for someone to be able to work on it?
- is there one or several proposed ways to address the issue?
- does the issue need to be broken down into smaller ones?

### Review pull requests

When a change is proposed to a lesson, it is often useful to double check them before incorporating them. Things to look for in pull requests:

- are there any typos in the text? in the code?
- is there any unclear sentence?
- if the pull request includes a challenge, is there a solution with it? is there an explanation for the solution?
- are new concepts being introduced? if so, have they already been covered in the lesson?

### Welcoming and directing new contributors

If you are familiar with Git, GitHub, our lessons, our lesson template, being present on Slack to answer questions, welcome new contributors, directing people towards issues or pull requests to work on is very helpful for this type of distributed events.

## Suggested Bug BBQ workflow

Given that many people might be working on the lesson at the same time, it is important to coordinate and communicate who is working on what to avoid duplicating effort.

To facilitate communication and coordination among contributors during the event, we set up Slack channels for each lesson. There is a link to the channel at the top the README file in each repository. You are always welcome to ask questions on the `#general` channel. If you don't already have an account, you can join [The Carpentries Slack organization](https://swc-slack-invite.herokuapp.com/).

Before you start working on anything, it's a good idea to say "hello :wave:" in the channel of the lesson(s) you are planning to contribute to. If you are not sure what to work on, ask for suggestions. If you have special skills, do tell us so maintainers can provide better suggestions.

Before you start working on any change that is more than fixing a few typos, we recommend you start by opening an issue on GitHub in the repository associated with the lesson.

Only maintainers can use the "assignee" system provided by GitHub. So before starting to work on addressing an issue (including one you may have just opened), leave a comment indicating that you are working on it. If for some reason, you can't finish something you started to work on, leave a comment on the issue to let others know that someone else could start working on it, and if appropriate, commit your work in progress so someone can continue where you left off.

[Follow our guide](https://github.com/dmgt/swc_github_flow/blob/master/for_novice_contributors.md) to create a pull request on the lesson, indicate the corresponding issue number in your commit message, and wait for feedback. If someone requests changes on your pull request, pushing more commits to the branch associated with your pull request, will update it automatically.

Don't hesitate to ask for feedback as you are working on something. It helps making your contributions better and will be more likely to be merged more rapidly.

If any questions arise as you work, don't hesitate to ask them on Slack!