Writing Class Etiquette

Just some points about the online class. We have a weekly chat scheduled to talk about various topics and discuss pieces. Although there are about 15 people in the class, there have never been more than 8 students in any chat. It makes for a more manageable size, but I wonder if people have just decided it really isn't worth it unless the class is discussing their specific piece or whether they are just too busy or if we have an actual classroom if attendance would have been equally spotty.

The other thing is doing critiques. There are one or two people who haven't contributed to reading anyone else's pieces, and only seem interested in having someone read their own piece. Not great form, but I"m not going to lose sweat over it. But I was a little surprised to see someone called on it yesterday. She said something like, I've read your piece but I'm not going to comment on it at all, because you've had three weeks and you haven't said anything about my piece yet. I guess that's fair, but you would hope something like that wouldn't happen in a writing class. Everyone is just working on writing better stuff. Everyone should be helping each other. I don't know why it can't be that easy.