Spell out mission statement, fixes ethereum#1128 (ethereum#4748)

* Spell out mission statement, fixes ethereum#1128

* Update README.md

Co-authored-by: lightclient <[email protected]>

* Remove definite article against "tracks"

* Update README.md

Co-authored-by: Alex Beregszaszi <[email protected]>

* Update README.md

Co-authored-by: Alex Beregszaszi <[email protected]>

* Update README.md

Co-authored-by: lightclient <[email protected]>

Co-authored-by: lightclient <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Alex Beregszaszi <[email protected]>

Author: 3 people

README.md

@@ -1,16 +1,17 @@
 # Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs)
 
-[![Gitter](https://badges.gitter.im/Join%20Chat.svg)](https://gitter.im/ethereum/EIPs?utm_source=badge&utm_medium=badge&utm_campaign=pr-badge)
+**Before you initiate a pull request**, please read the [EIP-1](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1) process document. Ideas should be thoroughly discussed on [Ethereum Research](https://ethresear.ch/t/read-this-before-posting/8) or [Ethereum Magicians](https://ethereum-magicians.org/) first.
 
-Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) describe standards for the Ethereum platform, including core protocol specifications, client APIs, and contract standards. **Browse all current and draft EIPs on [the official EIP site](https://eips.ethereum.org/).**
+This repository tracks ongoing improvements to Ethereum. It contains:
 
-**Before you initiate a pull request**, please read the [EIP-1](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1) process document.
+- The [EIP status page](https://eips.ethereum.org), tracking protocols for Ethereum clients and applications
+- The [process document](https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-1) that governs how protocols are published here
 
-Once your first PR is merged, we have a bot that helps out by automatically merging PRs to draft EIPs. For this to work, it has to be able to tell that you own the draft being edited. Make sure that the 'author' line of your EIP contains either your GitHub username or your email address inside \<triangular brackets>. If you use your email address, that address must be the one publicly shown on [your GitHub profile](https://github.com/settings/profile).
+For help *implementing* an EIP, please visit [Ethereum Stack Exchange](https://ethereum.stackexchange.com).
 
-## Project Goal
+## Mission
 
-The Ethereum Improvement Proposals repository exists as a place to share concrete proposals with potential users of the proposal and the Ethereum community at large.
+The goal of the EIP project is to document standardized protocols for Ethereum clients and applications and to document them in a high quality and implementable way.
 
 ## Preferred Citation Format
 
@@ -20,54 +21,57 @@ Please consider anything which is not published on https://eips.ethereum.org/ as
 
 And please consider anything published at https://eips.ethereum.org/ with a status of "draft" as an incomplete draft.
 
-# Validation
+## Automerger
 
-EIPs must pass some validation tests.  The EIP repository ensures this by running tests using [html-proofer](https://rubygems.org/gems/html-proofer) and [eipv](https://github.com/lightclient/eipv).
+This repository contains an "auto merge" feature to ease the workload for EIP editors. Pull requests to any EIP will be auto-merged if the EIP's authors approve the PR on GitHub. This is handled by the [EIP-Bot](https://github.com/ethereum/EIP-Bot).
+
+## Validation
+
+Pull requests in this repository must pass automated validation checks:
+
+* HTML formatting and broken links are [checked](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/.travis-ci.sh) using [html-proofer](https://rubygems.org/gems/html-proofer).
+* EIP front matter and formatting are [checked](https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/.github/workflows/auto-merge-bot.yml) using [EIP Validator](https://github.com/ethereum/eipv).
 
 It is possible to run the EIP validator locally:
 ```sh
 cargo install eipv
 eipv <INPUT FILE / DIRECTORY>
 ```
 
-# Automerger
-
-The EIP repository contains an "auto merge" feature to ease the workload for EIP editors.  If a change is made via a PR to a draft EIP, then the authors of the EIP can GitHub approve the change to have it auto-merged. This is handled by the [EIP-Bot](https://github.com/ethereum/EIP-Bot).
+## Build the status page locally
 
-# Local development
-
-## Prerequisites
+### Install prerequisites
 
 1. Open Terminal.
 
 2. Check whether you have Ruby 2.1.0 or higher installed:
 
-```sh
-$ ruby --version
-```
+   ```sh
+   ruby --version
+   ```
 
 3. If you don't have Ruby installed, install Ruby 2.1.0 or higher.
 
 4. Install Bundler:
 
-```sh
-$ gem install bundler
-```
+   ```sh
+   gem install bundler
+   ```
 
 5. Install dependencies:
 
-```sh
-$ bundle install
-```
+   ```sh
+   bundle install
+   ```
 
-## Build your local Jekyll site
+### Build your local Jekyll site
 
 1. Bundle assets and start the server:
 
-```sh
-$ bundle exec jekyll serve
-```
+   ```sh
+   bundle exec jekyll serve
+   ```
 
-2. Preview your local Jekyll site in your web browser at `http://localhost:4000`.
+2. Preview your local Jekyll site in your web browser at http://localhost:4000.
 
 More information on Jekyll and GitHub pages [here](https://help.github.com/en/enterprise/2.14/user/articles/setting-up-your-github-pages-site-locally-with-jekyll).