If it's dropped I think it's a result of quality of comments dropping.
I see a lot of "nice shot" type comments here. I make them myself quite often, but I see them on images that are not really "nice shots." There is no such thing as a perfect image, so there will always be something that could be improved upon, but I also see people who do offer critique get accused of "nit-picking" or similar. If everyone just thought of critique as a gift, and it's up to the OP to decide whether or not to accept it, then I'm sure the quality of comments would improve. If you don't agree with someone's critique, then just say why you don't agree with it and offer an alternative. Don't slate whoever posted it, as long as they were posting their honest opinion.
There was a recent thread that "kicked off" because someone noticed an anomaly that was likely down to the jpeg conversion. It wasn't immediately obvious but was definitely there, and all hell broke loose because some thought it was a slight on the photographer's abilities. It wasn't, it was just a comment to highlight the image wasn't being presented as well as it could have been and was fully justified. Thankfully many people agreed with the comment, but several others were saying "what does it matter?" Well this is a Photography Forum, of course it matters! We are all aiming for perfection, be it artistically or otherwise, even though we all know that perfection will never be achievable.
And while I'm on this merry little rant, another thing that winds me up is when people are defensive about critique offered. You hear it quite often in the wildlife threads, things like "yeah but I couldn't go and tell the bear how to pose could I?" Well no, obviously you can't walk up to a bear and get it to pose as you want, but you can wait around a bit longer until it does pose nicely for you, or go out and try again the next day, and the next day until it does pose nicely for you. Far too often I see OPs replying to critical comments with "Thanks, but..." without really thinking that the negative comment was raised for a reason, and that in all likely hood is something that can indeed be improved upon if you just tried a bit harder.
Anyway, rant over. I went and searched some of the threads you have commented on and I have to say I spotted the ones you are referring to and completely agree. If they are new here then there is a "beginner" tag (indeed a whole section) they can use to let help people target their critique and advice accordingly. If they haven't used it, then let loose and say what you think. If they throw their toys out the pram and storm off then that's their loss. The ones that will take the critique and post something the next day to show how they've attempted to overcome the issues are the ones that are worth spending your time on.
