I have strong feelings about critiques because, with all due respect,  I don't think most of us here have the experience or the credentials to be critics of someone else's work. With a few exceptions that I know of, most of us are unpublished amateurs who are writing for pleasure or entertertainment.  There are talented people here. There are people who will never find their way to print. That doesn't mean I think the opinions are without value, but they are the opinions of readers who may, or may not, have any background in the kind of writing I'm attempting. I would not change my writing based on critiques from someone I don't know.

For example, I could give criticisms of poetry but you wouldn't want me to. I am a bad poet myself, I don't read poetry, I don't have an interest in poetry, I don't study great poets and I don't memorize great poems. Given all of that, why on earth would a poet seek criticism from me? For the same reason, an author of fantasy would not solicit my opinion. Fantasy, adored by so many here, bores me. I have no right to comment on works that I am prejudiced against before reading a word.

I tend to believe, perhaps wrongly, most people here use Renderosity as a vanity press...a place to get encouragement and praise to continue writing. There is nothing wrong with that, but it makes them very vulnerable to disillusionment when someone is not instantly infatuated with their words.  I would not want to be the person who discouraged someone from writing because my uninformed self printed a careless word of critique to somone who asked for my opinion (unsolicited advice is worse).  And that has happened to me already here. I don't post criticisms as a result.

"A writers’ group offers feedback and encouragement. At its best, it becomes a respectful forum for critiquing your manuscripts. Similar comments help to identify areas of strength and weakness in your work. A writers’ group is the perfect forum for test flying your concepts and ideas. A thriving group meets regularly. Its members share in the conversation and dedicate as much attention to your work as their own. The group becomes a think tank, a creative incubator. … But writers are a dangerous lot. A writers’ group can go sour when members attempt to reform or remold your work. Every writer wants to construct a particular story in his/her own way, but it is unfair to suggest that you change your work to suit another writer’s notion of the story. Good artistic critique comes in the form of questions, not suggestions. The questions are for you to consider. It’s your job to figure out how to fix your story."  author Christopher Klim

Before seeking criticism from an outside source, first learn to be objective about your own writing. Step back and learn the skills you need to proof and edit your own work.  Only the writer knows what he or she was attempting to communicate, and that ability to self-edit, self-evaluate are  powerful tools.

Personally I would not put forward anything for criticism until I felt it was the best I could do. And I would put nothing on the galleries or forums that I wanted to see put in print.