first off, just as an fyi, i'm not upset or angry.  i'm open to getting to know everyone in this thread.  i think the criticisms and alternate ideas have been offered with thoughtfulness and care, and done politely.  and i think that everyone who's showed concern about the critique group has shown that they are interested, that they care about the idea, and they just want it done in the most positive way possible.  i just think the slant seems to be more towards the possible negatives of this implementation and not of negatives of the others proposed.  and don't necessarily take into account that every solution will have potential negatives; it's more about how the group behaves than the mechanism.

no, there hasn't been a critique forum.  but there is a developer's forum for people to post w.i.p projects.  it has nearly zero  traffic.  there's never been a critique gallery, but i was around when penguinisto first posted his teen v3 made with her base morphs (her face was much more genuinely teen than laura's).  he posted all his morph settings with it.  the next thing you know,  other people were sharing of settings for characters.  so rendo created the character formula gallery, for people to post characters and their morph settings to share (hence the "formula").  within a very short period of time, people were using it incorrectly for everything from promoting commercial morph poses to showing custom made figures.  so it went from this really positive initiative where we'd share information to make great figures to another gallery with little activity. 

and those are both single examples.  i've seen that type of thing happen again and again with both galleries and forums on different sites.

no, i wouldn't say subscribing to threads is the same.  first of all, any thread, even at one per image, will have drift and personality.  as an example, Giana, you posted this same argument  to a sticky meant only for "i'm subscribing" or "i'm unsubscribing."   you had another place to put your concerns, but you still brought the conversation to (technically) the wrong place.  this isn't (at all)  to single you out- i myself have posted opinions and such in that thread.  it's just to illustrate that even someone employing great thought and care, and driven by the best intentions, will take a thread off track.  forums are meant for conversations.  i don't need to be notified every time someone offers a new critique, gets into a disagreement, posts tangential thoughts or pictures of kittens.  forums have a much lower signal to noise ratio than galleries.  i don't know of any forum software that would alert me only with new images.

also, here i've posted how many times?  i'll never comment on an image more than once.  i don't  even  think the system allows it.  a forum or thread or any discussion would be quickly dominated by the same personality trends presently dominating the forums.  then it would become a clique.  right now, it doesn't matter at all who you are.  i don't really know anything about people other than what they want artistically if they said so.  i'm looking at their work, not reacting to whether they like dogs and hate cats or who they voted for in the last election.  or, more saliently, whether they sided with anton or shahara in the blow-up over clark.

right now, if a shy person signs up, and they have basically the same experience as someone more verbose (like me).  that wouldn't be the case at all if the critiques entirely took place in the discussion boards.

regarding participation: as i mentioned before, people fight when the issue of removing their type of work from the poser gallery or their type of post from this forum arises.  that's because people don't really traffic the other forums or other galleries.  we're not trying to dominate, but i don't think we should force people to hide their work, either.

if it takes place in another forum, it will die.  if the critiques take place in thread(s) in this forum, they'll become discussions and will become social groups about personalities and not just the work.  and people will actually be excluded instead of just feeling like they are.  if it leaves the poser gallery, images won't be seen.

and i have to add to  the questions that pjz99 posted.  it seems like the worst case scenario proposed is that images with lots of thoughtful criticism will be high profile.  and while people might not want to join, all they'd have to do to if they did want to is post "let me in" in a thread.  not post tons of positive remarks on everyone's images, not campaign for popularity, just one post in one thread and they're in.  how is this bad?  because people might fear it?  if the images get into the gallery at all, and are open for comments and ratings, people will fear a group.  there is no technology that will remove the positive effects of participation in a community.  and i think that's good.

believe me, i understand being the underdog.  that's always where i am, too.  personally, i grew up as outside the norm in pretty basic ways i won't get into here.  but you can only do so much to reach out.  and it doesn't matter where it happens, people afraid of groups are going to be afraid of this group.  and i think most other solutions, including continuing to talk about it and make ourselves (as members) more visible as people outside of our artwork, will only intensify the issue.  i think the best we can do, no matter what the mechanism, is to respond to people who feel left out with a hearty, "come on in!  we'd love to have you."

oh, and a note- the last part about posting is directed at myself.  after this monster post, i'll shut up and let other people talk ;D.  please feel free to continue discussing this, and know i still care.

peace out.