I've never received enough comments on any of my images for me to be concerned that I don't have time to reply to all of them. I'm happy with the comments I do get though and I make a special effort to send a quick IM to whoever comments just to say thank you for visiting and leaving a comment. Under my most recent image I said something about leaving a comment if you would like to..and forgot to tick the box that allows commenting. It was late at night and I went to bed straight after. I had several IM's about the problem, fixed it, send IM's to the commenters that it was fixed and put a comment of my own under the image to apologise and was pleasantly surprised when all of them reposted...I have a couple of hundred views of the image now and I think my efforts to IM people thanking them paid off. I know this is just one instance, but I don't think a lot of people are offended by IM's saying thank you. I've had some lovely replies to my thank you's as well so personally I think it's a nice gesture. And yes, I do go visit their galleries and quite often leave comments. Helen.