I still think this should be on the top since it's the lead in/why for reading the whole page. I

I was thinking in the direction of separating simple feedback in form of issues and feature requests from direct involvement in the project, because I believe people have a quite clear idea whether they want to do the one or the other.

How about adding sections

• Bug reports and feature requests
• Contributing to Matplotlib

and putting the above text in the second section?

The preamble is explicitly saying that bugs and features are forms of contributing...like the primary reason I'm saying to put it up top is b/c otherwise we're repeating the same language anyway since landing pages need a context setting preamble anyway.

We welcome you to get more involved with the Matplotlib project.
There are various ways to contribute:
optimizing and refactoring code, detailing unclear documentation and writing new
examples, helping the community, reporting and fixing bugs and requesting and implementing new features...

but also I get if I'm gonna just have to show what I mean in a follow on PR

IMHO the main issue here is that "contributing" is used in two ways.

• General contribution, which is every interaction with the project (including openening an issue or feature request)
  https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/index.html
• Getting involved with the project in the sense of actively working with the code/documentation/community.
  https://matplotlib.org/devdocs/devel/contribute.html

logical: Ageneral contribution is one of two types

• posting an issue or feature request
• actively working with the code/documentation/community

The first is more like giving a feedback with no intention of longer relationship. The second involves getting to know the project structures and is thus far more complex. I would really like to distinguish the two types, because the relevant information for the two target groups is significantly different and by clearly distinguishing between them, we can provide exactly the required information for each.

I feel we are missing a good terminology for the cases here.

I would really like to distinguish the two types, because the relevant information for the two target groups is significantly different and by clearly distinguishing between them, we can provide exactly the required information for each.

I get what you're saying but also we're putting them on the same page so I don't think that the answer is adding another layer of hierarchy or burying the preamble. Though hmm, thinking about this more, maybe just removing this line since we literally invite folks to do it in the next two boxes may help with the flow a bit:

As a user, you can give valuable feedback by reporting bugs and suggesting features

And possibly making the border color around 'bugs + issues' different or turning the other cards into grids - making this a primarily visual distinction.

I've removed the sentence. The bugs and features cards have a shadow and an icon in the heading. IMHO this makes them visually distinct from other cards on the page - in particular the shadow also detaches the cards from the otherwise flat content of the page. I'm a bit hesitant to play with colors too much.

ok, I can mess around w/ the other cards in the follow up I think I'm making to tackle a couple of things.