It might be useful to have an [`ISSUE_TEMPLATE`][0] file that people fill out when submitting new Github Issues. Although it adds a slight [PITA][1] when submitting bug reports, it should help to avoid the common back-and-forth at the start of most issues to request useful information.
I have written [one such template][2]. The "Prerequisites" section is based on the most common missing/wrong things I've seen in submitted issues. Perhaps it belongs in a `CONTRIBUTING` file instead, but putting it inline in the [`ISSUE_TEMPLATE`][0] makes sure people have to explicitly ignore it.
For now don't worry about spelling or grammar mistakes, but I'm interested to see whether this is wanted at all, and whether any sections or items should be added or removed. We can get the exact spelling and wording fine-tuned when I make an actual pull request.
Feel free to [try it out][3] on my testing repository.
[0]: https://help.github.com/articles/about-issue-and-pull-request-templates/ [1]: http://onlineslangdictionary.com/meaning-definition-of/pita [2]: https://github.com/codebrainz/geany-issue-template [3]: https://github.com/codebrainz/geany-issue-template/issues/new