Good point and here is some nueance from a book I read right now regarding parenting and their main point is to neither punish or rate performance (good nor bad

Good point and here is some nueance from a book I read right now regarding parenting and their main point is to neither punish or rate performance (good nor bad). What you should aim for albeit hard, is to relate to the childrens feelings instead. This translates well into adults. Rather than saying, "this report was super good, well done!" say "What a great feeling I get when I read the report" or "Feels good with the report being complete?" Thought experiment: You say that reaching below 0 is punishing and getting more than 0 shows that your question is good. You get feedback that you've done great work writing the question. How would it look like when the site relates to your feeling when writing and contributing to the site? Would it work even if you remove score all together? Giving rewards result in people seeking awards. Which may seem like a wise thing but aiming for self confidence is way better. Which is obvious but may be good to point out anyhow.