diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md
index 91543ab4432edd9649062893fc0303cc1bd5ab9f..1b94f6cb95575a3d077c24e554ae4e61ef148109 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.md
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md
@@ -28,6 +28,11 @@ high quality, we request that contributions adhere to the following guidelines.
 In general, the more you can do to help us understand the change you’re making,
 the more likely we’ll be to accept your contribution quickly.
 
+If a template is mostly a list of files installed by a particular version of
+some software (e.g. a PHP framework) then it's brittle and probably no more
+helpful than a simple `ls`. If it's not possible to curate a small set of
+useful rules, then the template might not be a good fit for this collection.
+
 Please also understand that we can’t list every tool that ever existed.
 Our aim is to curate a collection of the *most common and helpful* templates,
 not to make sure we cover every project possible. If we choose not to
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 14042e94fa1b41fb3f480001c2dbeb6412c356b8..684a1abf2c74c13b77702c75a26a6e1a80b0b5d9 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -53,6 +53,11 @@ high quality, we request that contributions adhere to the following guidelines.
 In general, the more you can do to help us understand the change you’re making,
 the more likely we’ll be to accept your contribution quickly.
 
+If a template is mostly a list of files installed by a particular version of
+some software (e.g. a PHP framework) then it's brittle and probably no more
+helpful than a simple `ls`. If it's not possible to curate a small set of
+useful rules, then the template might not be a good fit for this collection.
+
 Please also understand that we can’t list every tool that ever existed.
 Our aim is to curate a collection of the *most common and helpful* templates,
 not to make sure we cover every project possible. If we choose not to