A Few Random Thoughts on The Purpose of This Forum
As usual, this debate ended up polarized: personal gallery vs. C&C. Binary world, yes/no, black/white. I like mine in shades of gray (an while we are at it, in 16-bit at least, please). In other words, and in my opinion, it should neither be a personal gallery nor C&C as expected in the other forum (User Critique). It should be all of that and something in between. So, what would be the difference then?
First, a simple and obvious one: this is a landscape-only forum, while the other is a more general one (street, portrait, etc., including landscape).
But the real difference should be, again in my humble opinion, in how the integrity of the posted photo is treated, i.e., whether alterations of it are allowed as part of comments.
It is assumed that a post in the User Critique forum implicitly asks, or often quite explicitly, "how can I improve this?", "is my post-processing o.k.?", "what would you suggest?", etc. In that spirit, some critiques would go beyond a verbal recommendation and into a reprocessing of the originally posted photograph, often suggesting different crops, conversion to b&w, color corrections, etc.
In this forum, however, it's been assumed that such alterations should not take place. It is assumed that, when landscape posters are choosing between the two forums, they select this one because they are more knowledgable and more confident in their final result and are not looking for a critique that would be more suitable for beginners. What they are looking for, allow me to assume further, is the esthetic or other impact their image might have on the audience. In that respect, opinions will inevitably vary, thus no one in his sane mind (and healthy ego) should expect acclamations only.
Another aspect of posting in this forum is that many advanced posters are quite sensitive, rightly or wrongly, when it comes to the integrity of their work, i.e., they do not like to see their work "mutilated". Fair enough and that should be respected.
On a personal note, I made at least in one instance a transgression of the above guideline, by simply overlooking in which forum the post was placed, and proceeded with a detailed and graphical demonstration of my comments, including a reworked photo. I belatedly realized what I did, edited my original post with an explanation and offered to delete the post if the OP found it objectionable. He did, I apologized and removed it.
And that is how I see the difference between the two forums, folks.