Join in
Read a section. If something is wrong, unclear or missing, say so.
That’s the whole contribution model, and it takes about five minutes. A good correction counts as much as a new section.
New here? How commenting works
What this is. The seed paper is a request for comments: a draft shared on purpose, so the people who do the work can improve it. The internet’s own standards have been written this way since 1969.
How to comment
- Select any sentence in the paper or the guide. A Discuss this passage button appears at the bottom of the screen. Or use Discuss at the end of any page.
- GitHub opens. If you aren’t signed in, sign in or create a free account. It takes a minute, and you don’t need to know anything about code.
- The passage you picked is quoted for you. Add your comment and press Start discussion.
What happens next. The author reads every thread and replies. Others can join in. When a thread points to a change, it follows How it grows, and everyone who helped is credited by name.
A good comment can be one sentence. “This doesn’t match what I’ve seen, because…” · “Here’s a public source for this: …” · “My team does this differently: …”
No GitHub account? Write to cpp@anacay.org. Your comment gets posted for you, with credit if you want it.
Where it happens
On every page
Each body-of-knowledge page ends with Discuss and Suggest an edit. You need a free GitHub account. You don’t need to know Git.
On GitHub
Discussions for questions, proposals, terms, cases and sources. Pull requests for edits. Every decision is written down in the thread.
On LinkedIn
Follow the page for news and new open questions. A group for introductions and prompts opens with the repository. Good threads move to GitHub, with credit to the people in them.
The page · The group is opening soon.
Ways to contribute
| You want to… | For example | Do this | Size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fix an error | A typo, a broken link, a wrong number, a misquoted source. | Suggest an edit on the page, or open a “Fix an error” issue. | Minutes |
| Add or improve a term | A word planners use differently, or one that’s missing. | Open a “Terms” discussion with a one-sentence definition. | Minutes |
| Propose a change | To an idea, a method, or how a section is built. | Open a “Proposals” discussion. | A short write-up |
| Share a case | What happened, with names and numbers changed. | Open a “Cases” discussion. Read the anonymizing checklist first. | A few paragraphs |
| Add a public source | A paper, a talk, a public dataset, a filing. | Open an “Add a public source” issue. | Minutes |
| Translate a section | Into a language you plan in. | Open a discussion first, so two people don’t translate the same page. | Hours |
Contributing, step by step, from a two-minute comment to a pull request.
What not to bring
These keep the practice safe to contribute to, and safe to use.
- Anything confidential to a current or former employer, client or vendor.
- Names of internal systems, projects or teams that aren’t already public.
- Real internal numbers: ratios, costs, utilization, forecasts, lead times. Invent illustrative ones, and label them.
- “I’ve seen the data, trust me.” If it isn’t public, it’s labeled argued or unmeasured.
- Sales pitches, including the steward’s.
Credit, licence and conduct
Everyone who contributes is named, by edition, with what they did. Being listed doesn’t mean you endorse every word. It means you helped build it.
By contributing text you license it under CC BY-SA 4.0, like the rest of the content; code is MIT. There’s nothing else to sign. Everyone follows the code of conduct.
Want to help edit? Editors keep the loop moving: they review edits, call rough consensus and assemble each edition. How editors are chosen.