Well, the guy who made the comments is an American, and I will defend to the death this right to say that Americans are idiots. That's what makes America great ... our right to totally trash ourselves. I didn't even know that the photography gallery had a top 20. Nor do I know if any of my photographs ever got into the top 20, because, honestly I don't care. That has as much to do with politics and popularity as it does with the quality of the work ... sometimes it has more to do with politics and popularity than with the quality of the work ... which is why I never look at Hot 20s or Top 20s or whatever they call them. Because I don't bother to look there, I wouldn't see if someone posted that something of mine was a piece of crap that didn't belong there. And, I wouldn't care ... or I'd probably agree with them (low self esteem, doncha know). Also, the gallery instructs posters to post comments that can help improve the quality of the images. So, you can't really blame someone who makes such a comment. However, I agree that I prefer to post WIPs in the forum and have everyone do the critical comments here rather than in the gallery. Having said that, I have (on more than one occasion) posted an image, had someone make a comment indicating how I could improve the image ... I've instituted the comment and posted the new image (with a comment of my own that this is a repost and what was changed). Again ... it doesn't bother me. There are a lot of people in the world who speak first and think later ... I make my living cleaning up their verbal messes. If you (or your friend) internalize something any individual says -- about you, about your friend, about your artwork or her artwork, about a country, or even about the senseless death of several thousand people -- you are going to give yourselves ulcers.

Could be worse, could be raining.