What we tend to define as spam, is something that has nothing to do with the artwork.

If someone says, "I like your coloring job", that's not spam, since there's a specific thing they said they liked.

It only gets counted as spam when they never actually had to see the art to make the review.

If they say just one thing specific to that piece of artwork, it is not spam.

Even if someone can't "pinpoint what exactly is great," they can at least say what their favorite part was.

This proves that they did actually view the artwork, and that they are not just posting for the sake of raising their post count.

I got caught doing that on your Batman pic.

No problem though. I understand what theyre trying to do. It must be hard to regulate so many posts.

I can hopefully dispel some misconceptions about posting in Comics, at least. It should hold mostly true for the other creative forums as well.

First of all, I am not exactly sure why the disappearance of posts has become more noticeable since after the downtime. It might actually have to do with decreased activity in general. I do know that no major posting rules have been changed, however.

By the rules, whether or not a post counts as generic does not have anything to do with its length. I will grant that it is easier to make a shorter generic post than it is to make a longer one. There are, however, plenty of legal one-sentence (or even shorter!) posts made in the forum. A post does not have to be several paragraphs in length to be legal.

Eeko and Fantasia are correct. The "generic post" rules can be whittled down to the following sentence: "Your post must prove that you have looked at the artwork." It is very easy to make a post saying, "Your artwork is incredible! I really like it; keep it up!" without having loaded any of the images, or without having stopped scrolling to look at them. In Comics, you may see very short posts that are not deleted. This is because they relate something specific to the most recent comic, be it a line or joke. As long as it shows that the member has read the comic, it is okay.

I think the only case in which the rules could be loosened is if posts did not add to your post count in the creative forums. However, this would discourage posting, ultimately; an increase in one's post count is a good incentive to participate. If anything, I have gotten more requests to make the rules in Comics stricter (which I cannot really do, but that is another story!).

@Windrider: Okay thanks, this makes everything clear.

Glad to have elucidated things!

In addition, perhaps I could stand to be less trigger-happy with the "Delete" button. I'll try to leave more edits directing the poster to the rules topic.