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Hey @reshamas, thanks for caring, opening this PR and tagging.

I am not sure, though, because I am afraid it targets the wrong target group. Personally, I would like to make the whole contribution process easier for people, especially beginners, who are interested in interacting deeply. I don't think it helps to mandate them to also go read the FAQs and COC, before opening a PR.

I am afraid this change could actually exclude / be one more barrier for potential contributors who conscientiously read instructions while it doesn't prevent fly by PRs or machines from opening PRs at all.

Also, it has nothing to do with the PR if their author claims to have read the COC and these checkmarks are not expressing truth anyways.

For these reasons, I would rather not review this.

This text has markdown syntax, but it is in a comment, so the bullet points and bold font, etc, do not render:

I think it's fine if it doesn't render. It's only for machines. In any case, this part can stay at the very end.

My comments:

1. From a user experience, having links in comments is not effective. Users are more likely to ignore links in a comment rather than copying the link into a new browser tab.

2. Suggestion: Change the name from "Pull Request Checklist" to "References" so users can easily click on them.

3. A link to the COC should be included in the PR template as a reminder. There was a time when maintainers on open source projects (including this one) didn't understand why the repos were required to have a CoC. Years later, it has become the norm.
   Given the CoC issues this project has experienced, this is an important reminder. 

4. Contributors should be reading the FAQs and CoC prior to submitting a PR. 

one more barrier for potential contributors who conscientiously read instructions

If they have read the instructions, there should be no barrier to them checking a box for a task they have already completed.

5. Many other open source projects use PR checklists.  scikit-learn is an anomaly in that it doesn't

Examples:

• pandas: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pandas-dev/pandas/refs/heads/main/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md
• pymc: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/pymc-devs/pymc/refs/heads/main/.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md

6) checklist

Also, it has nothing to do with the PR if their author claims to have read the COC and these checkmarks are not expressing truth anyways.

I disagree with this statement. 

I can agree with the problem but still prefer a different approach to solve it. (In particular, I also find the CoC and following through on it extremely important.)

My concern is that asking contributors to read it and the long FAQs, and part of the extensive github docs and a sub-part of the FAQs again on top of the contribution guide punishes those who are already careful (that might well be people who are underrepresented in tech) while those who are careless would simply check it off without reading.

What is the problem we are trying to solve?

I think having a checklist is a good idea. Other projects do it and in some way scikit-learn also does it, but it is dressed up as bigger points. For example there is a heading about referencing an existing issue. Personally having the headings seems nicer because some of them need the author to write a few sentences. However my biggest gripe is that a lot of people just ignore the template. So maybe a combination of checklist and headings?