DOC: CONTRIBUTING.md: Gold plating: syntax, punctuation, Markdown format...
...ting

:sparkles:

... I don't know how many times I've wanted to deep link to the EXCELLENT commit message tags section, which doesn't have its very own heading.
 can you squash?
 I have comments on this.
 @jreback 

> can you squash?

I've been in Mercurial land, working with MQ. How do I squash?

@jtratner 

> I have comments on this.

Shoot.
 To squash:

``` sh
# add the remote if you haven't already
git remote add upstream git://github.com/pydata/pandas.git
git fetch upstream
git rebase upstream/master # shouldn't be any merge conflicts
git rebase --interactive upstream/master  # this is where you squash
```
 @cpcloud 
Thanks.

@jreback 
Smushed, I think.
 When you squash there should be fewer commits than before (you're essentially combining commits). You've now got some commit history from recent master _and_ repeat commits that you'll need to clean up. Here's how:

**This will destroy any changes you made in between your previous commits and your squash attempt**. You can recover them, but lets only deal with that if we have to.

``` sh
git reset --hard HEAD~6  # go back to your original before the squash
```
 @westurner sorry for holding this up, looks good and thanks. Please make that one change and I'll merge it.
 @jtratner 
Done and done.
 Looks like you've still got a bunch of extra history. Can you clear that up? We can merge as soon as you do that. Thanks!
 @westurner Why did you close?
 @cpcloud 
I guess this was not a good sequence of commands for folding patches:

```
git reset --soft HEAD~7
git commit -m "..."
git push origin :patch-2
```
 ... merge conflicts
 A soft reset will simply put the commits from `HEAD` to `HEAD~7` (inclusive) in the index, as if you had made all of the changes at once and had just staged them. It won't correct any merge conflicts or other issues
 Happy to help u some more with `git`. I'm very patient.
 https://travis-ci.org/westurner/pandas/jobs/12120689:

```
Using worker: worker-linux-3-2.bb.travis-ci.org:travis-linux-6

$ export NOSE_ARGS="not slow"
$ export FULL_DEPS=true
$ export GUI=qt4
$ git clone --depth=50 --branch=patch-2 git://github.com/westurner/pandas.git westurner/pandas
Cloning into 'westurner/pandas'...
fatal: unable to connect to github.com:
github.com: Temporary failure in name resolution

[...]
```
 that's a random failure on travis's end (or maybe github's)
 Thanks. How do I avoid that extra commit in the PR? I think I `reset HEAD~1` one too many times.
 (Tornado-y weather on the ground here in Omaha at the moment)
 Do these commands exactly as I have them here

``` sh
git reset HEAD~1
git stash
git reset --hard upstream/master
git stash pop
git add .
git commit -m 'WRITE AN AWESOME MESSAGE HERE'
git push --force
```
 but write a differernt commit message
 bravo! hope that helped and that u understand git a bit more than before :)
 Thanks so much!
 @jtratner 
Should be good to merge.
 thanks!
