[Eugenia Gabrielov]

I will be one of the first to say it right out loud: I know that I can be very harsh sometimes with newbies. Patience isn't my natural strong suit, but I do try and sometimes I fail to be the member I wish to be and sometimes I succeed.

As I often read back in my posts, I think to myself in shame and say "How would I feel?" After doing this numerous times back in the day, my manner of responding to inexperienced questions and actions changed bit by bit until I felt that I responded with the adequate amount of grace needed to maintain self-respect in an intelligent and developing community.

I feel that many that have posted above me are very correct, but I will say that when I am sitting there posting, I find it difficult to tell myself and make excuses for a person. I realized that many months ago, and consciously chose to change my style or giving reputation.

In fact, I have made amazing friendships just be giving a rep point to someone when it looked like they were shy to post much but wanted to put in their 2 cents, or if the rep prompted a dialogue on an issue and later developed into a strong friendship. The same thing happens with private messages. Two examples of two best friends with whom the entire thing began with rep or private message? Neha & Bridgette. I love you guys...

Some people would say my giving of reputation is arbitrary. I give lots of it. I don't always give it for posts that I see that are long, or that give insight. I give reputation for effort. When I see a new individual, with a bit of rep, post a short comment in a thread that has a good function, I compliment them. Yes, negative rep is discouraging, but not recieving any rep at all is just as discouraging. I'm sure there are many people out there who check their rep screen every 20 minutes in hope of positive reinforcement in a unique community, where they may not get positive reinforcement for sharing information in their home, school, or robotics program.