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Contributing to awesome-oss-sponsorship

First: thank you. The single biggest reason this list stays useful is people sending PRs with verified platform facts and fresh case studies. This doc tells you exactly how to do that without getting rejected.

The one rule that overrides everything

Do not publish unverified facts. If you can't cite an official source, mark it unverified and say so in the text. A missing fact is fine. A wrong fact is not.

All pricing, fees, and revenue numbers must be labeled estimate / reference only. We never promise returns, and we never publish a price as if it were a quote.

Ways to contribute

Area What you'd do File(s)
Platforms Add or correct a monetization platform (status, fees, payout) data/platforms.yml, docs/*.md
Affiliate programs Add a verified affiliate/referral program data/affiliate-programs.yml, docs/affiliate-programs.md
Pricing benchmarks Add a real anchored data point or correct an estimate data/pricing-benchmarks.yml
Case studies Add a maintainer/company with disclosed sponsorship numbers docs/case-studies.md
Templates Improve a copy-paste template (cold email, rate card, sponsor kit) templates/*.md
Translations Improve the Chinese edition or add a new language README.zh-CN.md, docs/*.zh-CN.md
Fixes Typos, dead links, stale statuses any

Adding / updating a platform — checklist

  1. Fetch the official site yourself (don't trust blog roundups — they rot). Open the platform's canonical homepage + pricing/docs page.
  2. In data/platforms.yml, add or update the entry with these fields: name, category, url, docs, status, best_for, monetization_model, region, payout_support, pros (≤4), cons (≤4), notes.
  3. Set status truthfully:
    • alive — operating as an OSS monetization platform
    • alive_pivoted — still up but changed focus (note the pivot)
    • alive_unverified — couldn't fetch (e.g. bot-blocked) — say so
    • acquired — bought/redirected (link to the acquirer)
    • dead — sunset/404
  4. If the platform has a dedicated doc page, mirror the key facts there too (docs/github-sponsors.md, docs/open-collective.md, etc.).
  5. Add a one-line entry to the README platform comparison table and the Chinese README if it's significant.
  6. Cite the URL you fetched in the notes or via the url/docs fields.

Adding an affiliate program — checklist

  1. Confirm the program's official page exists and loads.
  2. Capture: company, official program URL, commission structure (one-time / recurring / % / flat), cookie/attribution duration, payout method & minimum.
  3. If a company has no public affiliate program, do not invent one. You may add it to data/affiliate-programs.yml with program: none and a note, so the next person doesn't re-research it.
  4. Add it to the comparison table in docs/affiliate-programs.md.

Adding a case study — checklist

  1. Only use publicly disclosed numbers (official blogs, OpenCollective pages, maintainer posts). No leaks, no "a friend told me".
  2. Cite the source URL inline.
  3. If numbers aren't public, say "no public data" — that's a valid entry.
  4. Distinguish sponsorship revenue from commercial revenue (e.g. Tailwind UI license sales ≠ sponsorship).

Style

  • English content: natural, developer-friendly, no marketing tone, no Chinglish. Tables and checklists over prose.
  • Chinese content (*.zh-CN.md): grounded and practical, not lowbrow.
  • Every template must be directly copy-pasteable — fill-in fields in [brackets], no placeholder lorem.
  • Keep README sections scannable. This is an Awesome List: people skim.

Pull request format

  • Branch from main.
  • Title: add: <platform> / fix: <thing> / docs: <area>.
  • In the PR description, paste the URL(s) you fetched as evidence.
  • If you changed pricing, confirm you labeled it estimate / reference only.

Out of scope

  • Get-rich-quick framing, yield promises, or "guaranteed star" schemes.
  • Promoting your own sponsor-deal-matching SaaS as if it were neutral data (disclose affiliation in the PR).
  • Scraping private GitHub Traffic data from repos you don't own.

By contributing, you agree your contributions are licensed under CC-BY-4.0 (code snippets MIT). See LICENSE.