Sometimes it's difficult for the person giving the critique to know what stance to take. If the poster of the image is just out to produce a nice picture and wonders what people think, then an in-depth critique is OTT and will sound misplaced, pompous and possibly even rude. Then again, if someone is struggling with a piece he wants to submit for an important competition, say, or is trying to get his work published, then "nice pic, like the alien" is not really helpful and might even sound patronising. A few months ago I used to comment on maybe 20, 25 or more images a day in the galleries. I got a lot of thanks for it by way of IMs, emails, etc, but I also sensed that a lot of times people posted without a great desire to improve, but more just to share their art, and may have been a little taken aback when I started banging on about POV, FOV, DOF and TIR amongst other things. Which is great, but how to tell the difference? A point in case - and I sincerely hope he won't mind me saying this - is dontatro's work. I for one love his pictures as they are tremendously varied and thought-provoking, but I don't believe Don posts them in order to get critique on composition or colour balance but just to entertain people, which they certainly do. I don't know what the solution is for this, other than some sort of "flag" against images saying what type of critique the artist prefers. Maybe this is over-the-top, I don't know, just a suggestion????