I haven't had a presence here in a while, and I'm thinking of perhaps getting back into it more full-force.
Something I've noticed that drives me away, however, is the state of this place. While real art communities are built on critique and bettering each others' craft, this place thrives on cheap thrills about popular media all to eek out the slightest bit of attention from the fellow attendees. Subtlety is lost with over-saturated, over-contrasted, and downright blazon artwork whose sole purpose is similar to webpage ads that flash "WIN A FREE IPOD!!!!!". Any real critique is met with scorn, guilt-projected false self-esteem issues, or truly sad adorers who meaninglessly and belligerently argue in place of the artist.
Artists count their "page-views" and "favs" as a numerical value of their artist skill, a number that will undoubtedly cause them to assume that their greatness far outclasses their commenters. This small-time celebrity status has such a mind-altering effect (depending on the mind), yet is so short-sided that it forms a pseudo class system that breaks apart what a real artist community strives on in the first-place. This sort of system doesn't exist in other artist communities, because it hinders progress. If you go down to a gallery in Downtown LA, ALL of the artists know each other. The popular ones and the fresh fish get along to some extent, listen and learn from each other, and better themselves. Perhaps it's too much to ask when people are masked by their computers, but it would be interesting to see that kind of community online somewhere, rather than this ultimately shallow and unsatisfying approximation of a community. Maybe it will happen some day, just a thought.