wip contributing doc

Author: alimanfoo

CONTRIBUTING.md

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+Contributing
+============
+
+Please see the [project documentation](http://zarr.readthedocs.io/en/stable/contributing.html) for information about contributing to Zarr.
+

docs/contributing.rst

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+Contributing to Zarr
+====================
+
+Zarr is a community maintained project. We welcome contributions in the form of bug
+reports, bug fixes, documentation, enhancement proposals and more. This page provides
+information on how best to contribute.
+
+Asking for help
+---------------
+
+If you have a question about how to use Zarr, please post your question on
+StackOverflow using the `"zarr" tag <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/zarr>`_
+. If you don't get a response within a day or two, feel free to raise a `GitHub issue
+<https://github.com/alimanfoo/zarr/issues/new>`_ including a link to your StackOverflow
+question. We will try to respond to questions as quickly as possible, but please bear
+in mind that there may be periods where we have limited time to answer questions
+due to other commitments.
+
+Bug reports
+-----------
+
+If you find a bug, please raise a `GitHub issue
+<https://github.com/alimanfoo/zarr/issues/new>`_. Please include the following items in
+a bug report:
+
+1. A minimal, self-contained snippet of Python code reproducing the problem. You can
+   format the code nicely using markdown, e.g.::
+
+
+    ```python
+    >>> import zarr
+    >>> g = zarr.group()
+    ...
+    ```
+
+2. Information about the version of Zarr, along with versions of dependencies and the
+   Python interpreter, and installation information. The version of Zarr can be obtained
+   from the ``zarr.__version__`` property. Please also state how Zarr was installed,
+   e.g., "installed via pip into a virtual environment", or "installed using conda".
+   Information about other packages installed can be obtained by executing ``pip list``
+   (if using pip to install packages) or ``conda list`` (if using conda to install
+   packages) from the operating system command prompt. The version of the Python
+   interpreter can be obtained by running a Python interactive session, e.g.::
+
+    $ python
+    Python 3.6.1 (default, Mar 22 2017, 06:17:05)
+    [GCC 6.3.0 20170321] on linux
+
+3. An explanation of why the current behaviour is wrong/not desired, and what you
+   expect instead.
+
+Enhancement proposals
+---------------------
+
+If you have an idea about a new feature or some other improvement to Zarr, please raise a
+`GitHub issue <https://github.com/alimanfoo/zarr/issues/new>`_ first to discuss.
+
+We very much welcome ideas and suggestions for how to improve Zarr, but please bear in
+mind that we are likely to be conservative in accepting proposals for new features. The
+reasons for this are that we would like to keep the Zarr code base lean and focused on
+a core set of functionalities, and available time for development, review and maintenance
+of new features is limited. But if you have a great idea, please don't let that stop
+you posting it on GitHub, just please don't be offended if we respond cautiously.
+
+Working with the code
+---------------------
+
+Forking
+~~~~~~~
+
+The Zarr source code is hosted on GitHub at the following location:
+
+* `https://github.com/zarr-developers/zarr <https://github.com/zarr-developers/zarr>`_
+
+You will need your own fork to work on the code. Go to the link above and hit
+the "Fork" button. Then clone your fork to your local machine::
+
+    $ git clone [email protected]:your-user-name/zarr.git
+    $ cd zarr
+    $ git remote add upstream [email protected]:zarr-developers/zarr.git
+
+Creating a development environment
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+To work with the Zarr source code, it is recommended to set up a Python virtual
+environment and install all Zarr dependencies using the same versions as are used by
+the core developers and continuous integration services. Assuming you have a Python
+3 interpreter already installed, and have also installed the virtualenv package, and
+you have cloned the Zarr source code and your current working directory is the root of
+the repository, you can do something like the following::
+
+    $ mkdir -p ~/pyenv/zarr-dev
+    $ virtualenv --no-site-packages --python=/usr/bin/python3.6 ~/pyenv/zarr-dev
+    $ source ~/pyenv/zarr-dev/bin/activate
+    $ pip install -r requirements_dev.txt
+
+To verify that your development environment is working, you can run the unit test suite::
+
+    $ pytest -v zarr
+
+