diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 96d2854c9..4210d1867 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ There are three ways in which you can contribute to this repository:
 2. By working on the back-end application
 3. By working on the front-end application
 
+Choosing what to work on in a large open source project is not easy. The list of GitHub issues may provide some ideas, but not every feature request has been greenlit. Likewise, not every change or feature that resolves a personal itch will be merged into the main repository. Some communication ahead of time may be wise.
+
 Below are the guidelines for working on pull requests:
 
 ## General
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 70eef18d0..592a4ed73 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ A quick way to get a development environment up and running is with Vagrant. You
 
 ## Contributing
 
-You can open issues for bugs you've found or features you think are missing. You can also submit pull requests to this repository. This section may be updated with more details in the future.
+You can open issues for bugs you've found or features you think are missing. You can also submit pull requests to this repository. [Here are the guidelines for code contributions](CONTRIBUTING.md)
 
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