readme.html should be changed to a markdown file

[anonymized_20055759]

The readme under ​https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress should be changed to a markdown file for better readability. I think if we want to deter people from sending PR's to that repo, that can also be stated at the top of the file.

Someone had submitted a PR for it (​https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop/pull/1526), but it wasn't merged.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Hi there, welcome to WordPress Trac! Thanks for the ticket.

Just noting that this was raised a few times before, most recently in #37998 and #52315.

As mentioned in comment:8:ticket:52315, the repository at ​https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress is a mirror of the ​SVN build repository and only contains the files which are used in a release ZIP package, so the consensus was that it does not need to to be optimized for GitHub.

The repository at ​https://github.com/WordPress/wordpress-develop does include a proper README.md file, added in [45745] / #47767, and a CONTRIBUTING.md file, added in [50417] / #33043.

[anonymized_20055759]

Hi, thanks for the quick reply on this! I did not see the old tickets even after searching.

Personally I find it odd that people are so adamantly against changing this file. I am sure many people think to send a PR and realize upon sesrching that it has already been attempted. This is inconvenient for end users.

There are lots of things on the web we don't *have* to fix but look better in terms of usability and readability when we do. The repository is public and leaving the file as is looks like a mistake that hasn't been corrected. It's even hard for maintainers to read.

Just thought I'd take the opportunity to present a different opinion. I'll need a go ahead from someone to make a change though.

[sabernhardt]

#63444 was marked as a duplicate.

[sabernhardt]

The readme file in the root directory should not be changed or replaced for readability on GitHub. The HTML contains wp-admin links that do not fit well on GitHub.

However, the WordPress/WordPress repository seems to have a Code of Conduct file in the hidden .github folder (it is not in the root or docs). A separate README.md for the repository could go in that folder, with very reduced content such as the About text.