Improve GitHub community standards (#871)

* Add security policy
* Add code of conduct
* Add contributing guidelines
* Add guidelines for getting support
* Leave out google group intentionally to centralize information
* Finalize support guidelines
* Add governance guidelines
* Address review comments
* Include new information in docs landing page
* Add Contributor Covenance badge
* Mention community guidelines in release notes

.github/CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+# Contributing
+
+Thank you for wanting to contribute to `message_ix`!
+We highly value your input.
+Please refer to [our contributing guidelines](https://docs.messageix.org/en/latest/contributing.html) to learn about how to contribute to our community.

.github/SECURITY.md

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+# Security Policy
+
+As careful and community-oriented maintainers, we strive to keep our code safe to use for everyone. 
+For this purpose, we highly value your input and will acknowledge your contributions as best we can.
+
+## Supported Versions
+
+Unfortunately, the resources available for maintaining `message_ix` do not allow us to:
+
+- Support multiple versions at once.
+- Publish maintenance updates for older versions. For example, once `message_ix` version 3.10 is released, no further patch versions like 3.8.x, 3.9.x, etc. are possible.
+
+We generally develop our `main` branch and so to get the version of our code that contains all currently available security updates, please [install our code from source](https://docs.messageix.org/en/latest/install-adv.html#install-from-github) using the `main` branch. 
+Please reach out to us if you encounter any issues in doing so.
+
+If this is not an option, please ensure you are using the [latest release of our code](https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/releases) to profit from as many security updates as possible.
+`message_ix` is generally released twice a year, but may make additional releases on a shorter time line if necessary to mitigate critical vulnerabilities.
+
+## Reporting a Vulnerability
+
+To report a security issue, please use the GitHub Security Adivsory ["Report a vulnerability"](https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/security/advisories/new) tab.
+We will try to respond to your report as soon as possible with our and your next steps.
+If you wish, we will keep you informed about any progress until the vulnerability is fixed.

CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

@@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
+# Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct
+
+## Our Pledge
+
+We as members, contributors, and leaders pledge to make participation in our
+community a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body
+size, visible or invisible disability, ethnicity, sex characteristics, gender
+identity and expression, level of experience, education, socio-economic status,
+nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity
+and orientation.
+
+We pledge to act and interact in ways that contribute to an open, welcoming,
+diverse, inclusive, and healthy community.
+
+## Our Standards
+
+Examples of behavior that contributes to a positive environment for our
+community include:
+
+* Demonstrating empathy and kindness toward other people
+* Being respectful of differing opinions, viewpoints, and experiences
+* Giving and gracefully accepting constructive feedback
+* Accepting responsibility and apologizing to those affected by our mistakes,
+  and learning from the experience
+* Focusing on what is best not just for us as individuals, but for the
+  overall community
+
+Examples of unacceptable behavior include:
+
+* The use of sexualized language or imagery, and sexual attention or
+  advances of any kind
+* Trolling, insulting or derogatory comments, and personal or political attacks
+* Public or private harassment
+* Publishing others' private information, such as a physical or email
+  address, without their explicit permission
+* Other conduct which could reasonably be considered inappropriate in a
+  professional setting
+
+## Enforcement Responsibilities
+
+Community leaders are responsible for clarifying and enforcing our standards of
+acceptable behavior and will take appropriate and fair corrective action in
+response to any behavior that they deem inappropriate, threatening, offensive,
+or harmful.
+
+Community leaders have the right and responsibility to remove, edit, or reject
+comments, commits, code, wiki edits, issues, and other contributions that are
+not aligned to this Code of Conduct, and will communicate reasons for moderation
+decisions when appropriate.
+
+## Scope
+
+This Code of Conduct applies within all community spaces, and also applies when
+an individual is officially representing the community in public spaces.
+Examples of representing our community include using an official e-mail address,
+posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed
+representative at an online or offline event.
+
+## Enforcement
+
+Instances of abusive, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable behavior may be
+reported to the community leaders responsible for enforcement at
+glatter `<at>` iiasa.ac.at or kishimot `<at>` iiasa.ac.at.
+All complaints will be reviewed and investigated promptly and fairly.
+
+All community leaders are obligated to respect the privacy and security of the
+reporter of any incident.
+
+## Enforcement Guidelines
+
+Community leaders will follow these Community Impact Guidelines in determining
+the consequences for any action they deem in violation of this Code of Conduct:
+
+### 1. Correction
+
+**Community Impact**: Use of inappropriate language or other behavior deemed
+unprofessional or unwelcome in the community.
+
+**Consequence**: A private, written warning from community leaders, providing
+clarity around the nature of the violation and an explanation of why the
+behavior was inappropriate. A public apology may be requested.
+
+### 2. Warning
+
+**Community Impact**: A violation through a single incident or series
+of actions.
+
+**Consequence**: A warning with consequences for continued behavior. No
+interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction with
+those enforcing the Code of Conduct, for a specified period of time. This
+includes avoiding interactions in community spaces as well as external channels
+like social media. Violating these terms may lead to a temporary or
+permanent ban.
+
+### 3. Temporary Ban
+
+**Community Impact**: A serious violation of community standards, including
+sustained inappropriate behavior.
+
+**Consequence**: A temporary ban from any sort of interaction or public
+communication with the community for a specified period of time. No public or
+private interaction with the people involved, including unsolicited interaction
+with those enforcing the Code of Conduct, is allowed during this period.
+Violating these terms may lead to a permanent ban.
+
+### 4. Permanent Ban
+
+**Community Impact**: Demonstrating a pattern of violation of community
+standards, including sustained inappropriate behavior,  harassment of an
+individual, or aggression toward or disparagement of classes of individuals.
+
+**Consequence**: A permanent ban from any sort of public interaction within
+the community.
+
+## Attribution
+
+This Code of Conduct is adapted from the [Contributor Covenant][homepage],
+version 2.0, available at
+https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/2/0/code_of_conduct.html.
+
+Community Impact Guidelines were inspired by [Mozilla's code of conduct
+enforcement ladder](https://github.com/mozilla/diversity).
+
+[homepage]: https://www.contributor-covenant.org
+
+For answers to common questions about this code of conduct, see the FAQ at
+https://www.contributor-covenant.org/faq. Translations are available at
+https://www.contributor-covenant.org/translations.

GOVERNANCE.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+# Governance
+
+The `message_ix` team welcomes contributions of any kind from anyone!
+If you are looking to understand how the team operates and how we decide what to do with your contributions, please read on.
+
+Decisions in the `message_ix` framework are made following good scientific practice, that is, only after careful discussion and review from at least another colleague.
+Depending on the size of the impact the decision will likely have, different scales of decision making are employed.
+For small decisions, the decision may be handled by the [maintainers](#maintainers), while for larger decisions, discussion in the [weekly team meetings](#weekly-team-meetings) may be required.
+
+## Maintainers
+
+At the moment, `message_ix` is maintained by @khaeru and @glatterf42.
+This mostly means that they are most active in responding to issues and discussions and perform the housekeeping work as it arises.
+However, given the size of the `message_ix` framework, it is all but impossible to be truly familiar with every aspect of it.
+For this reason, incoming questions may also be answered by various [specialists within our team](#specialists).
+
+## Specialists
+
+The `message_ix` framework covers many topics already and can be expanded to cover many more and coupled to various other scientific software.
+Examples of this include the modules for water, buildings, material, and transport, or land-use emulators such as [MAgPIE](https://www.pik-potsdam.de/en/institute/departments/activities/land-use-modelling/magpie).
+For all these topics, individual specialists within our team collaborate with one another.
+We encourage everyone to use [trunk-based development](https://www.atlassian.com/continuous-delivery/continuous-integration/trunk-based-development) and [GitHub projects](https://docs.github.com/en/issues/planning-and-tracking-with-projects/learning-about-projects/about-projects) to develop their individual version of our code, while maintaining compatibility with other version.
+We then encourage everyone to frequenly bring their changes to our code back to our `main` development branch. 
+
+## Weekly Team Meetings
+
+Every Thursday, the `message_ix` core developer team meets to discuss current developments.
+This includes discussing proposed changes to the core formulation or new feature ideas in detail.
+
+Once a month, this meeting is extended to invite everyone at IIASA with an interest in `message_ix`.
+These meetings serve the purpose of giving a high-level overview as well as receiving feedback from people who do not join the other meetings. 

README.md

@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@
 [![Documentation build](https://readthedocs.com/projects/iiasa-energy-program-message-ix/badge/?version=stable)](https://docs.messageix.org/en/stable/)
 [![Build status](https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/actions/workflows/pytest.yaml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/actions/workflows/pytest.yaml)
 [![Test coverage](https://codecov.io/gh/iiasa/message_ix/branch/main/graph/badge.svg)](https://codecov.io/gh/iiasa/message_ix)
+[![Contributor Covenant](https://img.shields.io/badge/Contributor%20Covenant-2.1-4baaaa.svg)](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) 
 
 
 MESSAGEix is a versatile, dynamic, model framework for energy-engineering-economy-environment (E4) systems research.
@@ -44,6 +45,14 @@ Other forms of documentation:
 - For offline use, the documentation can be built from the source code.
   See the file [`doc/README.rst`](doc/README.rst)
 
+## Commitment to our Community
+
+- We aim to create a community that is welcoming to everyone. Please respect our [Code of Conduct](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md) at all times when interacting with `message_ix` and the community.
+- We warmly welcome all contributions to our community. Please take a look at our [guidelines for contributing to development](https://docs.messageix.org/en/latest/contributing.html).
+- If you are looking to understand how the `message_ix` team operates and how we decide what to do with your contributions, please read our [governance guidelines](GOVERNANCE.md).
+- We highly value code security. To learn more about our security practice and advice, please visit our [security policy](.github/SECURITY.md).
+- We strive to entertain a welcoming and inclusive community. If you struggle to use `message_ix`, please check our [guidelines for getting support](SUPPORT.md).
+
 ## License
 
 Copyright © 2018–2024 IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE) Program

RELEASE_NOTES.rst

@@ -1,5 +1,11 @@
-.. Next release
-.. ============
+Next release
+============
+
+GitHub community guidelines
+---------------------------
+
+Add community guidelines for interaction on GitHub (:pull:`871`).
+Please familiarize yourself with these to foster an open and welcoming community!
 
 .. All changes
 .. -----------

SUPPORT.md

@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+# Getting Support
+
+We are glad that you want to use `message_ix` and sorry to hear that you are running into issues!
+This page aims to showcase various ways to get support for when you feel stuck.
+
+If you want to learn more about how `message_ix` works, from the ideas behind it to the meanings of every single parameter, please refer to [our documentation](#our-documentation) first.
+
+If you conclude that these are not enough and you have a specific question, please check if [our GitHub discussions](#github-discussions) have got you covered.
+
+If you encounter an issue using `message_ix` as you envisioned, please let us know using [our GitHub issues](#github-issues).
+
+If you have exhausted all previous options *and* collaborate with IIASA, you may also reach out to us on [Slack](#slack).
+
+## Our Documentation
+
+We offer extensive documentation for how `message_ix` works and encourage all new contributions to provide new documentation, too.
+Please find our documentation at https://docs.messageix.org/.
+Please note the search bar on the left side, and try to use it!
+It is a fast and reliable way to find what you are looking for.
+
+## GitHub Discussions
+
+We always welcome new discussion posts on GitHub.
+Collecting them all in one place allows other users to find and interact with existing discussions rather than all having to start from scratch.
+Please visit https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/discussions for a list of all past discussions.
+You can search them for keywords or scroll through them by category.
+If you don't find your particular point of interest addressed already, please [start a new discussion](https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/discussions/new/choose) by selecting the category that you think is fitting.
+We strive to answer as quickly as we can, but may take a few days to get back to you if we are extremely pre-occupied.
+Please come back to any discussion you opened to select the answer that finally helped you solve your question.
+
+## GitHub Issues
+
+We appreciate your efforts to tell us that something is not working as intended!
+Please head over to https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/issues and search the existing issues to see if your issue has already been reported.
+If no one encountered it before you, please [open a new issue](https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/issues/new/choose) by completing the form as best you can.
+We strive to respond as quickly as we can, but may take a few days to get back to you if we are extremely pre-occupied.
+
+## Slack
+
+This option is only available if you collaborate with IIASA in one form or the other.
+And even then, it should only be used after the other resources have been exhausted.
+Ask your collaboration contact at IIASA to invite you to Slack, if they have not done so already.
+On Slack, please navigate to the `message` "External Connection" in the "IIASA ECE Program".
+There, you can search past posts, or post your new topic as usual. 

doc/index.rst

@@ -112,12 +112,17 @@ Using, getting help, and contributing
 
 Everyone is encouraged to use the framework to develop energy system and integrated assessment models!
 
+Everyone is required to please follow our Code of Conduct, which you can find `on GitHub <https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/blob/main/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md>`__ or in :file:`CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md` included with the source code.
+
 - :doc:`api`
 - :doc:`rmessageix`
 - :doc:`whatsnew` —release history and migration/upgrade notes.
 - :doc:`notice` —including how to properly cite the framework and software in scientific research.
+
 - :doc:`contributing` —we welcome enhancements to the framework itself that enable new features across all models.
+- You can learn more about how we handle your contributions `on GitHub <https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/blob/main/GOVERNANCE.md>`__ or in :file:`GOVERNANCE.md` included with the source code.
 - :doc:`sharing`—we invite the sharing of the usage of the |MESSAGEix| framework.
+- See our Security Policy `on GitHub <https://github.com/iiasa/message_ix/blob/main/.github/SECURITY.md>`__ or in :file:`.github/SECURITY.md` included with the source code.
 - :doc:`faq`
 - :doc:`bibliography`
 
@@ -130,7 +135,9 @@ Everyone is encouraged to use the framework to develop energy system and integra
    whatsnew
    notice
    contributing
+   governance
    sharing
+   security policy
    faq
    bibliography