Truly, "status" is as productive of just-so stories as evolutionary psychology.
Tabooing the word "status", I simply mean that it is SAFE to guess your teacher's password, but it is COOL to criticize. I expect most people to prefer SAFE to COOL. These are my expectations:
If group of people who know each other reads a new website... most people will not care (but may wait for group consensus, to be safe), some people will criticize it to be COOL.
If group of people who know each other reads a new website, because their professor told them so, and it seems like the professor likes the website... most people will write savourles...
Link.
Given the positive reactions, I think the professor seeded them with a positive impression of the site's content.