I have to admit, I didnt expect such a massively positive response as this.
I do think the above point of "age and maturity" is a very key point here though. The younger members are generally the ones who believe autopens are authentic, or their preprint is authentic because "theirs is the original", and things like that. Yes its because they're young, and big fans of the celeb.
But young or not, this is one of the biggest - and easiest to find - fanmail forums on the internet. Because of this, surely we have a "duty" to make sure that the information posted by our members is as accurate as possible?
If I created a website about (for example) World War 2, and filled my site with false imformation, then I would be getting emails on a daily basis correcting me.
Fanmail.biz is doing the same thing.
I'm not saying people arent entitled to their opinion, of course they are. But posting an opinion and posting something as fact when its not, are 2 very different things.
Because of misleading information, I've seen people believe autopens are authentics, believe PPs are authentic, and due to a lack of understanding of the terms, Ive seen people tell others that their preprint is an autopen, and similar such rubbish.
The age thing is not the main "problem" (for lack of a better word), the main problem is ignorance.
A recent example, a fellow member posted a success as authentic, despite it being a personalised preprint. I PM'd the member, with a scan of another personalised preprint, and they dismissed it entirely, stating it was authentic, despite their scan matching 100% all the other preprints on the forum.
This is obviously unhelpful, but its worst when JMs (no names) post similar things. JMs/mods/etc should ALL have a duty to stop the nonsense posts, but unfortunately I've seen several actually post it themselves.
This could be taken as a knock on the JM system, where you only need to PM admin to become a JM, but its not the main point of my post, which is to point out that JMs should not be encouraging false info, let alone posting it themselves.
As for the sugarcoating, its something I've never agreed with. If something is posted in a manner that in non-aggressive, and is just a straightforward declaration of facts, then there is no reason to sugarcoat. If you look at the threads where arguments have broken out ove authenticity, you will see its usually those who refuse to believe the truth ("its not a pp!! its real"" this celeb is good to their fans!!") who actually start the arguments. Using capital letters, lots of "!!!!" and "???" as well as lots of "
:mad: :mad: :mad: " smilies also helps start arguments. THESE comments are the real argument-starters, as the blatant ignorance and inability to believe the truth then riles other members.
I seem to have rambled on a bit here, and gone a little off topic maybe, but its all relevant.
Maybe a rule where no one is allowed to state an opinion (either way) unless asked for by the threadstarter (no-one else, these posts are removed). And another rule where if an opinion IS asked, then the only response allowed are ones back up with reasons/proof. Any posts saying just "its real!" or "its sec!" are then removed.
Its more work for the mods/admin, and its not the ideal solution in my eyes, but it could be the best solution for the way this forum is set up and run.
you all have expressed the great truth behind the heated debate; and i totally agree with each of you. what's the use of a debate if you can't hear both sides of it? a debate allows us all to form an educated opinion that gets us closer to the truth. if everyone just agreed & go about la-dee-da -- this forum wouldn't be very informative to the true autograph collector. there shouldn't be any censorship of anyone's opinion -- regardless which side the other chooses to side with: i.e. authentic or not authentic. but i guess what it really comes down to is the maturity of the people on this forum. i mean...am i wrong? most of the people who do post here are probably not old enough to vote. 
but with that being said...maybe a little sugarcoating isn't that bad -- i don't know? -- perhaps it will help deter arguments from igniting 
I must admit, one of the main reasons I'm on the site is that it's so honest.
