[NorESM-users] Keeping in touch with the NorESM community

[Tomas Torsvik]

Dear NorESM users,

the NorESM development team strives to create an open and interactive development environment to support the continued use of the NorESM system, encourage model development efforts and enable porting of the model to new computer systems. To meet this goal we have made the model source code openly available through the NorESMhub (gitHub) portal, provided user documentation through the ReadTheDocs system, and maintain options for user feedback both though the gitHub issues tracker and queries to the noresm-ncc mail list. Recently we have also opened up a separate discussions forum linked to the NorESM gitHub repository. We are writing this email to you both to advertise this new option, and also to clarify how we think to make use of the different communication platforms we now have available.

The noresm-ncc mail list is an option for users who wish to contact the NorESM development and CMIP6 production team directly, with questions or queries that may or may not be of general interest to the wider user community. The discussion around these emails may circulate among a small group who are directly involved with the specific topic of the email, but will not be visible for the larger user community. If a Q&A email exchange is deemed to be of general interest, a short version of the discussion may be included in the FAQ section of the NorESM documentation, or integrated in the documentation where it is appropriate.

The gitHub issue tracker is mostly suitable for questions that address specific elements of the model source code (for model components), model coupling or documentation (for the main NorESM repository). An issue is raised about something that can be resolved in some way, either through code changes or by some other response, after which the issue is marked as closed and is archived. The focus for the development team will be on unresolved issues, and although resolved issues remain accessible, they are hidden from view by default and do not encourage continued discussion after being closed.

The github discussions (forum) allows for questions, queries or announcements that are of a more general type, that do not necessarily require a specific response, but can be responded to by anyone in the NorESM user community (provided you have a gitHub account). Discussions on the forum are open ended and will remain on the forum page for future reference, but discussions can be locked for new comments and deleted from the forum if requested. The forum is open for anyone to view, even without a gitHub account, and we hope that it will serve as a useful knowledge base for the general NorESM user community. Discussions may evolve into issues that can be transferred to the issue tracker system, or be taken up in the documentation. If you have questions that you do not wish to share publicly, queries to the noresm-ncc mailing list will remain an option.

We hope that you will find these platforms for information and communication useful, and welcome you all to get in touch through whichever format suites your needs.

Best regards,
NorESM development team

NorESM discussion forum : https://github.com/NorESMhub/NorESM/discussions
NorESM issue tracker : https://github.com/NorESMhub/NorESM/issues
NorESM documentation FAQ : https://noresm-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq/faq.html
NorESM CMIP6 data and model question email address: noresm-ncc at met.no