When I leave gallery comments at all -- which is rarely -- it's around 98% positive.  About the only thing that will inspire me to leave a "negative" comment are images which I find to be politically / philosophically objectionable.  In which case I am responding to the idea behind the image.....not to the artwork per se.

It's kinda inevitable that you're going to upset some people if you say negative things about their work.......because artists (at all levels of expertise & talent) tend to regard their artwork as a personal extension of themselves.  So verbal jabs at their pretty picture are interpreted as personal insults.  There's also the fact that some people are simply more sensitive by nature than are others.  It can't be helped.

In a similar vein, some people can take the heat in the forums.  Others run off crying to the Mods everytime that someone says "boo!" to them.  Likewise, some people are comfortable enough in their own skins to let negative statements bounce off of them, while others feel every word deeply.

I tend to reserve most of my "negative" comments for the forums.....not the galleries.  In a way it's more fair: because the opposite has a chance to answer back.

Heh -- the flipside of this "negative comment" coin can be taken too far, also.  That is to say: the implied idea that True Maturity can only be demonstrated by standing around stoically while being unjustly or wrongly criticised or attacked.  An odd sort of maturity, that.  Attackers tend to like that sort of "maturity" residing in their targets -- because it gives the attacker free rein to do whatever they want to do without fear of being answered, or criticised in their own turn.

You can hand out negative comments if you want to: but be prepared to get them back in return if you do.  Don't start crying "foul!" (or just start crying) when your words are returned to you in the same spirit as you've so freely shared them.  I have a serious problem with critics who can't stand to be criticised, or who get huffy when their negativism turns out to be contagious.

People have a right to criticise their critics.......or even to contend that their critics are flatly wrong.

Something To Do At 3:00AM