Update Contributing Documentation

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,22 +1,22 @@
-# Contributing guidelines
+# Contributing Guidelines
 
-## How to become a contributor and submit your own code
+Welcome to Kubernetes. We are excited about the prospect of you joining our [community](https://git.k8s.io/community)! The Kubernetes community abides by the CNCF [code of conduct](code-of-conduct.md). Here is an excerpt:
 
-### Contributor License Agreements
+_As contributors and maintainers of this project, and in the interest of fostering an open and welcoming community, we pledge to respect all people who contribute through reporting issues, posting feature requests, updating documentation, submitting pull requests or patches, and other activities._
 
-We'd love to accept your patches! Before we can take them, we have to jump a couple of legal hurdles.
+## Getting Started
 
-Please fill out either the individual or corporate Contributor License Agreement (CLA).
+We have full documentation on how to get started contributing here:
 
-  * If you are an individual writing original source code and you're sure you own the intellectual property, then you'll need to sign an individual CLA.
-  * If you work for a company that wants to allow you to contribute your work, then you'll need to sign a corporate CLA.
+- [Contributor License Agreement](https://git.k8s.io/community/CLA.md) Kubernetes projects require that you sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) before we can accept your pull requests
+- [Kubernetes Contributor Guide](https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/guide) - Main contributor documentation, or you can just jump directly to the [contributing section](https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/guide#contributing)
+- [Contributor Cheat Sheet](https://git.k8s.io/community/contributors/guide/contributor-cheatsheet) - Common resources for existing developers
 
-To sign and submit a CLA, see the [CLA doc](https://git.k8s.io/community/CLA.md).
+## Mentorship
 
-### Contributing A Patch
+- [Mentoring Initiatives](https://git.k8s.io/community/mentoring) - We have a diverse set of mentorship programs available that are always looking for volunteers!
 
-1. Submit an issue describing your proposed change to the repo in question.
-1. The [repo owners](OWNERS) will respond to your issue promptly.
-1. If your proposed change is accepted, and you haven't already done so, sign a Contributor License Agreement (see details above).
-1. Fork the desired repo, develop and test your code changes.
-1. Submit a pull request.
+## Contact Information
+
+- [Slack channel](https://kubernetes.slack.com/messages/external-dns)
+- [Mailing list](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/kubernetes-sig-network)

README.md

@@ -280,24 +280,26 @@ Have a look at [the milestones](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/external-dns/
 
 ## Contributing
 
-We encourage you to get involved with ExternalDNS, as users, contributors or as new maintainers that can take over some parts like different providers and help with code reviews.
+Are you interested in contributing to external-dns? We, the maintainers and community, would love your
+suggestions, contributions, and help! Also, the maintainers can be contacted at any time to learn more
+about how to get involved.
 
-Providers which currently need maintainers:
+We also encourage ALL active community participants to act as if they are maintainers, even if you don't have
+"official" write permissions. This is a community effort, we are here to serve the Kubernetes community. If you
+have an active interest and you want to get involved, you have real power! Don't assume that the only people who
+can get things done around here are the "maintainers". We also would love to add more "official" maintainers, so
+show us what you can do!
 
-* Azure
-* Cloudflare
-* Digital Ocean
-* Google Cloud Platform
+The external-dns project is currently in need of maintainers for specific DNS providers. Ideally each provider
+would have at least two maintainers. It would be nice if the maintainers run the provider in production, but it
+is not strictly required. Provider listed [here](https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/external-dns#status-of-providers)
+that do not have a maintainer listed are in need of assistance.
 
-Any provider should have at least one maintainer. It would be nice if you run it in production, but it is not required.
-You should check changes and make sure your provider is working correctly.
-
-It would be also great to have an automated end-to-end test for different cloud providers, so help from Kubernetes maintainers and their idea on how this can be done would be valuable.
+The external-dns project is also in need of automated end-to-end tests for different DNS providers. Any help from the
+Kubernetes community and ideas on how this can be accomplished would be valuable.
 
 Read the [contributing guidelines](CONTRIBUTING.md) and have a look at [the contributing docs](docs/contributing/getting-started.md) to learn about building the project, the project structure, and the purpose of each package.
 
-If you are interested please reach out to us on the [Kubernetes slack](http://slack.k8s.io) in the #external-dns channel.
-
 For an overview on how to write new Sources and Providers check out [Sources and Providers](docs/contributing/sources-and-providers.md).
 
 ## Heritage
@@ -312,7 +314,3 @@ ExternalDNS is an effort to unify the following similar projects in order to bri
 
 * A full demo on GKE Kubernetes. See [How-to Kubernetes with DNS management (ssl-manager pre-req)](https://medium.com/@jpantjsoha/how-to-kubernetes-with-dns-management-for-gitops-31239ea75d8d)
 * Run external-dns on GKE with workload identity. See [Kubernetes, ingress-nginx, cert-manager & external-dns](https://blog.atomist.com/kubernetes-ingress-nginx-cert-manager-external-dns/)
-
-### Code of conduct
-
-Participation in the Kubernetes community is governed by the [Kubernetes Code of Conduct](code-of-conduct.md).