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There are many ways one can see opinions and get feedback from your performance as a violinist. But what does make some opinions more important than others? Are there situations when we should not expect to get any feedback? Arnold Steinhardt mentions in his book "Indivisible by Four" that when they were students, you could never expect to get a positive comment on your playing from any fellow student, they all were inspecting your performance as others inspect smelly cheese.
One way I find being easiest to know something about how the performance was perceived is to measure the intensity and length of applauses. Here of course, one needs to be aware of that the length depends on the public amount, where in the program you play, and how many friends you have in the public.
I find the most appreciative and constructive, when it comes to feedback, people in general being either non-musicians, or professional musicians, and the most critical being other amateur musicians of the same instrument group or non-musicians that are extremely passionate listeners to classical music. What do you think?
Violinists, I believe, are extremely competitive and their feedback motives are always open to suspicion. I trust the opinion of "uneducated" acquaintances who actually may have been listening to the music rather than contemplating my bow arm posture, etc and worrying that I might be better than they thought 
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Very well said Oliver 
The opinions of our audiences, general public, non-professional musicians, classical music lovers, are in my opinion, the most important. They are the ones that we are first and foremost playing for.
As far as learning and improving is concerned, I believe that EVERYONES opinion counts though you must be able to filter the bad advice from the good. When someone gives you good advice you may want to listen extra well to them in the future.
Unbiased advice is for sure more truthful.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
The most valid generalization I can safely make is that I am my own worse critic. I have invented a quote … "I may not be good enough to be good enough but I'm good enough to hear it" 
PS Lacking a teacher, I ALWAYS check out the value of new information BUT, in general, I find that a lot of advise is given by people who are defending something they do (wrong). I think it takes many years for someone to really understand what is going on AND be able to explain that to a novice.
Besides, I have also come to realize that most of my shortcomings are simply a violation of the most basic principles and require more attention than correction.
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Oliver, that is a brilliant quote!!
Very often, I think it is much easier to criticize somebody else's playing, than to play it himself. However, I think many violinists criticize having in mind the idea "I would do better if I had time to do it." but they never actually try performing the piece, or some similar piece...most of them wont even try to go on stage even if having the opportunity, even though they still think "I would do better." And most often, no matter how much one practices, one will do a lot of mistakes or small things here and there in a performance...even the big stars do it
I find it being a bit sad, that people are so bad with complimenting each other. When somebody goes on stage from the orchestral members, I ALWAYS congratulate them and tell all my positive impressions from the performance...so that they continue performing.
A little complement goes a long way as does the recognition but I am always aware of the loneliness. Another good quote .... "The enemy has been sighted and it's me!"
I too do not like the competitiveness that seems so common among violin players. It is sometimes bitter and comes from people who just know a lot of buzz words and are much better at talking than playing.
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I'm really happy to see this discussion here. Playing the violin is about having fun not being competitive and jealous.
Let's make a deal here. Only constructive criticism and admiration for all the positive that we accomplish. We can decide that we don't need to compete to be accepted because we are doing this for the love of the instrument and music. Everyone who decides to work on the fiddle deserves an applause for accepting the challenge and sticking to it.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Deal! Besides, we won't be able to accomplish anything when we put each other down.
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