bjorke said:
If you can't stand the fire, get out of the kitchen, I say.
Posts like "I like it!" or "gorgeous!" are useless and don't lead anyone anywhere (and are NOT a valuable incentive, if they are freeely distributed everywhere capriciously).
But if there's some thought process behind it, then everything else, IMO, is FAIR GAME. Just be willing to back up your assertions with something better than "well that's what I think, nyah"
If active debate and dialectic was good enough for Socrates, Aristotle, and Marx, it should suffice here.
Sorry to "tag" so much of that previous statement. I would like it to be kept in focus while I engage in active debate.
To follow the above "rigid requirement" that comments such as "I like it" or "gorgeous" (both of which I will admit to having written, many times) is to accept a limitation of expressing one's honest reaction to a photograph. What WOULD be proper, if the honest reaction is one where an intense emotional response needs a description of the effect caused by encountering a unique, touching, emotion-filled photograph?
I have seen photographs that have drawn me into their aura, caused tears, have hypnotized me into another universe...., have re-kindled feelings of great joy, fascinated me to a state of rapture. These should be described as - what? "Could be improved by ...", when I cannot honestly conceive of any "improvement" whatever? I consider that to be plainly, and simply, dishonest.
Comments like "Awesome" ARE useful. Why should we deny anyone who asks, the recognition of their GOOD effects upon us? This conforms to the old idea of "never let them know when they have succeeded - it will only make them lazy" -- a mechanism designed solely to discourage others and protect the lofty turf of the discourager.
There. That should provided some fertile ground for discussion and debate.