I think i prefer galleries over the forum as the first point of contact between artist and critic. I think that nine times out of ten a single comment with however many suggestions is all that is wanted or even needed. If one part y or the other wants to take it further, say for example, the critic offers to demonstrate a technique hard to describe in text alone then a forum thread can be started with illustrations and the topic can be discussed more fully.

The really good thing about the way things are done at the moment is that crit group members get a notification from another member (ebot) saying 'hey, have a quick look at this and tell me what you think needs doing to it'. Using forums as the first point of contact invloves much more effort for artist and critic and ,lets face it, for most of us free time is short enough.