Contributing Overview
CDSL is maintained openly on GitHub at github.com/sanskrit-lexicon. Anyone can report an error, and maintainers can turn those reports into validated source corrections with a complete audit trail.
Choose your path
| You are... | Start here | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| A reader who found one typo | Report a Typo | A precise, evidence-rich report maintainers can act on |
| A maintainer handling one accepted report | Process One Correction | One validated source edit plus audit-trail change file |
| A maintainer processing many reports | Process a Scott Batch | A per-dictionary batch with done/todo splits, validation, and paired commits |
The golden rule
Source files are never edited by hand in an ad-hoc way. Corrections are expressed as change files applied by scripts, validated as XML, and committed with an audit trail. This keeps every edit reviewable and reversible. See Corrections Workflow and Change Files.
Ways to help
| You want to… | Do this |
|---|---|
| Report a wrong definition, headword, or scan | Follow Report a Typo |
| Propose or install a specific text fix | Follow Process One Correction |
| Process a named contributor backlog | Follow Process a Scott Batch |
| Link a citation to its scanned page | A "Dictionary to Book" task — see Issue Taxonomy |
| Improve markup / structured data | A "Structured Data" task — see Issue Taxonomy |
What makes a good report
Every correction begins as evidence, not just a replacement string. A good report names the dictionary, headword, observed text, expected text, scan or print evidence, and the transliteration used. Maintainers then classify it with the Issue Taxonomy and decide whether it is a text correction, markup repair, scan problem, or scholarly question.
What gets corrected where
- Digital text fixes (typos, wrong characters, markup) → change files →
applied to the source in
csl-orig, with an audit trail incsl-corrections. - Deviations from the printed scan → recorded in a
printchange.txt, not applied as silent edits. - Display or pipeline bugs → fixed in the relevant tooling repository, then regenerated into the public displays.