Written from the perspective of students seeking comments, but this reflection by Adam Kotsko holds true more generally. Adam notes that we really want validation, but the comments below the post are interesting too, in that seeking feedback is supposed to show something about the student too.

It comes up in the context of editing a journal, where sometimes people ask if I’ll take a look at their paper to see if it’s suitable. On the one hand I think this is fine, because not all papers are suitable for all journals. What I generally point out is that we have a policy of pre-screening all submissions by the editor and the five co-editors, and don’t send everything to review. But saying that it is suitable for review does not mean it is suitable for publication.