Freedom to critique photos

Dispite all of the discussion and complaints about ratings,

Photo.net still has a very workable system. With few exceptions, on

this site one can state that a good image is good or that a really

bad image is really bad without running afoul of the political

beliefs of the website operators.

Keith, I'm not certain I understand your statement. Are you suggesting that the Photo.net moderators are tolerant of politically-based critiques?

I'm not sure I've ever seen one that was about the personal politics of the moderators.

Bob, Brian - you guys Democrat or Republican? Marxists? :)

I think that Keith is saying that you can "tell it like it is" around here, and no one will force

you to "be nice".

That's true, and a good thing ... but I wish more people (here and elsewhere on the net)

realized the immense benefits that redound from "being nice".

Ah - gotcha. Well, you cannot say "anything," that's for sure - I've seen plenty of "critiques" get deleted by the moderators, too. Rightly so.

And yes, the "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" hardly makes the "Critique Gallery" a...well...a critique gallery.

I think the back-scratching is less of a problem than people think ... this is a community

of peers, and without politeness and kindness, it would not work. And of course it's

natural to respond to kindness with kindness. As long as some amount of useful criticism

is included with all the stroking, it seems to me that things work more or less as designed.

But I don't live and die by those ratings, either ...