Sausage,

You are probably right but the reason I suggest caution before you know people is because of a few people we have had here who do that whole "What do you think' business, then launch on the verbal counter attack constantly on anything said. I break writers down to three catagories:

Crumudgeons.
These are people who have been around a long time and want to talk about how everything was "in their day." They also talk down everyone that has a different opinion than there's. It is right up there with a brick wall as how effective dialogue is.

Validators:
These are people that claim they want feedback but then challenge everything about the feedback.And they get personal in their attitudes. What starts out in a very decent dialogue ends up in confrontation, and nasty feelings. Part of their entire make up is that they don't get much attention in their lives, their songs are never accepted because they are generally very disconnected from other forms of music. They are a lot of living room writers and write in a vacum. They want people to "validate" them and tell them how good they are and how everything they do is perfect. Anything less than that is "beneath them."

Everybody else:
Most people who actually participate in writers events, web sites, workshops, etc. are really open minded, just into it for the networking, friendship, and genuine back and forth. These people are fine with critiques and take it for the spirit intended.

This is most of the people here. We all know each other. We all have varying degrees of experience and always know we can learn from others and are willing to share opinions and experience.

The people that fall into the last category don't have a problem with open critiques. The people in the first two wouldn't care about them no matter what you did. I would just prefer allowing them reasons to air the dissagreements in the general public.

MAB