Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism

[Mike Ciance]

I'd like to start off by saying one very important thing

This thread is one of the best examples of gracious professionalism I have seen here in a long time.

I have already given rep points to 9 people in this thread. it's really great to see that when GP is brought to our attention again we are able to pull it off beautifully. now what we need to work on is having this kind of attitude all the time.

for all the bad i have seen on these forums, the main problem has been people takign things too seriously. i think there are a few guidelines that should be followed, some of which have already been mentioned, and some i am bringing up myself:

• don't give negative rep points for "newbie mistakes"
• be polite when posting a "search before you post" reminder
• for mistakes that are careless, not malicious, try to take advantage of the "neutral rep point" to give them a reminder without harming their rating. we ALL make mistakes, even Brandon and Dave
• try not to give negative reps on controversial threads. somebody who expresses dissapproval of an idea is only insulting that idea, NOT the people who follow it.
• if you really want to practice gracious professionalism, only give negative reps to those who fail to practice it themselves