diff --git a/README b/README
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a1822ec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+here are three great things about using these separate scripts for bot commands:
+
+    1. they can be written in nearly any language
+    2. you can change, add and delete commands without restarting the bot
+    3. you can test commands by running the script in a terminal
+
+the bad thing is that the more commands you add the slower the bot is
+because it has to run every line through every script
+because it's the script that decides what lines of chat are interesting to it