[Kevin Leonard]

I find people rarely give out negative reputation unless it's deserved. Occasionally a large group will all give deserved negative reputation to a person. But most of the time CD-ers give the benefit of the doubt in my opinion.

If you find yourself getting a lot of negative rep, I'd say it's probably you, and not the system that needs to be fixed.

I'm not going to pretend everything I've ever posted has been productive or as mature as it could be. But if you don't proofread, if you don't format your post in a readable way, and if you don't contribute to the discussion, I see no reason why people shouldn't give out more negative reputation than they do now.

Learning to deal with criticism, learning to discuss things in a civil manner in a way that is readable- these are lessons that CD can help teach students. I know it did for me.