> All of the contributors to my repo have figured it out though without me really telling them anything.
It is also true that everyone who didn't figure it out, did not contribute. This is a much bigger problem. Not specific to your project, more of an issue at large, but saying that '100% of people who contributed figured out how to contribute' isn't a grate benchmark for success.
It's not a benchmark for success and I'm going to make a change tomorrow to my repo that lets other know what they can do to contribute. What I don't think is good is people that don't understand what's going on making pull requests when they don't see the vision of the project. So far I have not gotten any of those which tells me that everyone who is making pull requests understands what the point of gitignore.io is.
It is also true that everyone who didn't figure it out, did not contribute. This is a much bigger problem. Not specific to your project, more of an issue at large, but saying that '100% of people who contributed figured out how to contribute' isn't a grate benchmark for success.