I'm with BB on this.  I'm at a point where I don't even want to add people to my favs anymore because I don['t have the time to leave comments.  I would really like to be able to give a thumbs up and get on with my day.

I'm not against comments and I don't think there is anything wrong with people froming little groups of friends either.  It really feels like there are two camps here.  The Forum friends and the Gallery friends.  And like any organization that has two camps, there is this 'us vs them' attitude.

Let the Gallery people make friends and comment on each other's work.  The idea behind things like this is to interact with people and build relationships.  More then art, technical skills or anything else, we as humans are interactive relationship building creatures.  Everything that we do we do to build relationships (well, or eat and have sex, but I digress).

Still, I will cry out that the ratings system is a joke.  The numbers mean nothing.  A 5 becuase you are my friend or a 3 because it isn't as good as Rembrandt hardly means anything.  It is vague and misleading.

Oh, and I know I've had a few 'drive-by' 1 stars plus gushy comments.  But I don't know who and I don't really care.

I really think a nice little "thumbs up" system would be vastly more useful and harder to exploit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go comment on some of my gallery friends' pictures! LOL.