"House rules" docs

docs/en/misc/contributing/index.md

@@ -14,3 +14,24 @@ Or, for more detailed guidance, read one of the following pages:
  * [Writing and translating **documentation**](documentation)
  * [**Translating** user-interface elements](translation)
 
+## House Rules for Everybody
+
+ * Ask questions on the [forum](http://silverstripe.org/forum), and stick to more high-level discussions on the [core mailinglist](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/silverstripe-dev)
+ * Make sure you know how to [raise good bug reports](/misc/contributing/issues)
+ * Everybody can contribute to SilverStripe! If you do, ensure you can [submit solid pull requests](/misc/contributing/code)
+
+## House Rules for the Core Team
+
+The "core team" consists of everybody with write permissions to our codebase.
+With great power comes great responsibility, so we have agreed on certain expectations:
+
+ * Be friendly, encouraging and constructive towards other community members
+ * Frequently review pull requests and new issues (in particular, respond quickly to @mentions)
+ * Treat issues according to our [issue guidelines](/misc/contributing/issues)
+ * Don't commit directly to core, raise pull requests instead (except trivial fixes)
+ * Only merge code you have tested and fully understand. If in doubt, ask for a second opinion.
+ * Ensure contributions have appropriate [test coverage](/topics/testing), are documented, and pass our [coding conventions](/misc/coding-conventions)
+ * Keep the codebase "releasable" at all times (check our [release process](/misc/release-process))
+ * API changes and non-trivial features should not be merged into release branches
+ * Avoid `git push --force`, and be careful with your git remotes (no accidental pushes)
+ * Use your own forks to create feature branches