[logank013]

Originally Posted by EricH

A quick note on the rep system: I don't give negative rep. I can't say that I haven't thought about dishing some out, but you've got to be a special kind of ______ for me to reach for the red rep button, and usually I figure enough folks have beaten me to it that I don't need to. However, I also don't give out a lot of positive rep. Or neutral rep. (Neutral rep, IMO, is useful for a quick, short warning message--a shot across the bow, if you will--that someone is borderline. It also helps fend you off of them...by forcing you to rep a bunch of other people if you really want to dose the red.) My general philosophy is "with great power comes great responsibility", and because of that I'm just as likely to PM as to rep.

As a student, there is nothing better than a PM from a mentor about a controversial thing that was posted. It's a whole lot better than getting publicly shamed in a post by someone quoting you in a reply and saying their issue with the post in public. I've gotten a few PMs about posts which have led me to edit the post or delete these posts. That's a great way to fix an issue. Quoting an issue and then addressing the poster in a negative way in a reply is just unproductive, embarrassing, and prolongs the issue (and sometimes hurts feelings but that isn't super usual). So to get to my point, thanks so much for PMing. Not quoting and replying in public.