This is a Civilized Place for Public Discussion

This forum’s purpose is to become the place where all the engineering enthusiasts can exchange ideas, learn from each other and discuss 3D modelling, simulation and technical product development topics. There will be no formal moderation, but SimScale representatives are present in the forum to provide additional information when needed and ensure that the forum is properly maintained.

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We, too, are a shared community resource — a place to share skills, knowledge and interests through ongoing conversation.

These are not hard and fast rules, merely aids to the human judgment of our community. Use these guidelines to keep this a clean, well-lighted place for civilized public discourse.

Improve the Discussion and the Relevancy of Topics

To keep this forum useful, discussions that are completely irrelevant will be deleted. Besides unrelated information, this includes self-promotion and advertisements. We’ve carefully defined this community’s purpose to be broad enough, so every person who needs advice on their project or an answer to a question, can feel welcomed here.

Help us make this a great place for discussion by always working to improve the discussion in some way, however small. If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you, too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, even if you disagree with some of what is being said.

One way to improve the discussion is by discovering ones that are already happening. Please spend some time browsing the topics here before replying or starting your own, and you’ll have a better chance of meeting others who share your interests.

Use the English language

This forum was created to be used exclusively in English. Try to comply with this rule and help us ensure that everybody can understand the posted content, using a common language.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But, remember to criticize ideas, not people. Please avoid:

  • Name-calling.
  • Ad hominem attacks.
  • Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content.
  • Knee-jerk contradiction.

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the conversation.

We are all here to learn and help each other, there is no space left for conflicts. A single hostile, defamatory, discriminatory, bigoted, threatening comment or personal insult can lead to the removal of a post.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for everyone. Help us influence the future of this community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this forum an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

Use the forum functionalities that will help us collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: favorites, bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s try to leave our park better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Moderators have special authority; they are responsible for this forum. But so are you. With your help, moderators can be community facilitators, not just janitors or police.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by moderator intervention.

In order to maintain our community, moderators reserve the right to remove any content and any user account for any reason at any time. Moderators do not preview new posts in any way; the moderators and site operators take no responsibility for any content posted by the community.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

  • Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hate speech.
  • Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene or sexually explicit.
  • Respect each other. Don’t harass or grief anyone, impersonate people, or expose their private information.
  • Respect our forum. Don’t post spam or otherwise vandalize the forum.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things. If you’re unsure, ask yourself how you would feel if your post was featured on the front page of the New York Times.

This is a public forum, and search engines index these discussions. Keep the language, links, and images safe for family and friends.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

  • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
  • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
  • Don’t post no-content replies.
  • Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Keep the quality of your posts. This includes a suitable title, good spelling and grammar, structured information - use bullet points or numbers rather than long quotes that are difficult to read, avoid ALL CAPITALS, excessive punctuation and unnecessary URLs.

Post Only Your Own Stuff

You may not post anything digital that belongs to someone else without permission. You may not post descriptions of, links to, or methods for stealing someone’s intellectual property (software, video, audio, images), or for breaking any other law. Always remember to cite your sources.

Don’t post personal information.

We want to ensure your safety, security, and privacy. To help us do this, never share passwords, credit card information, Social Security Numbers, driver’s and other license numbers, SimScale account details, or any other personal information in the Community.

Username

It would be great if your username would be as close as possible to your actual name to make this forum authentic. Nevertheless, if you want to get creative, we will not stop you. Just note that the term “SimScale” is not allowed to be used as it is reserved exclusively to our team. The same applies so other trademarked terms you don’t have authorization to use. Please also do not create multiple accounts for the Forum.

Powered by You

This site is operated by your friendly local staff and you, the community. If you have any further questions about how things should work here, open a new topic in the meta category and let’s discuss! If there’s a critical or urgent issue that can’t be handled by a meta topic or flag, contact us via the staff page.

Terms and Conditions

Yes, legalese is boring, but we must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folks. We have a Terms of Service describing your (and our) behavior and rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use this service, you must agree to abide by our TOS.