What Posts are Appropriate on AskProfessorKirby
AskProfessorKirby is meant to be a forum on fluid mechanics. I interpret this broadly to include machines and devices that operate all or in part on fluid-mechanical principles. The focus is university-level fluid mechanics as taught in Mechanical Engineering classes, with lots of overlap with how fluid mechanics would be taught in Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, and Aerospace Engineering, and some overlap with how it would be taught in Physics, Chemical Engineering, or Biological/Biomedical Engineering. Questions that do not involve fluid mechanics as we interpret it are out of scope and we will typically just delete those topics or posts.
Who Can Post What
AskProfessorKirby is designed using Discourse, which is community-based forum software, and consistent with that, anyone can post questions and anyone can post answers. However, the guiding principle of AskProfessorKirby is that I know what is correct and what is not, so in the end AskProfessorKirby is an expression of what I know/think about fluid mechanics. So the primary dynamic is meant to be that the community posts questions, and I answer the questoin or a computer program that I wrote answers the question. I welcome community members answering questions as well, and anyone who wants to can comment on my answers. In the end, though, I reserve the right to delete topics and posts that are not on topic or have incorrect information that I find distracts from the correct information. In that sense, this forum does not have the same democratic and community standards that most forums have.
Don’t Use This Website To Do Dishonest or Unethical Things
- don’t post material that you do not own or have fair use rights to use.
- material from this site can be used only in accordance with the Creative Commons license
- don’t use this website to do or learn to do anything harmful or illegal
- don’t try to get Professor Kirby Bot to say or do inappropriate things.
- do not use material from this website in classwork without attributing it and disclosing to your instructor that you have used this website.
Be Nice
I have sort of a zero-tolerance policy on the “Be Nice” part of things. There are other places where we can be rude to each other while we debate things. If you are not here with an earnest interest in fluid mechanics, or at minimum a desire to complete your fluid mechanics homework correctly, there are other, better places to go. Here I have the power to delete anything anyone posts, and I have no obligation to allow anyone to post anything. So, I presume everyone will be nice all the time because fluid mechanics is fun.