"Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by army*gurl »

*lol* :lol: 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. :lol: and i'm not poking fun, by the way ;-) 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 :roll:

anyhow...good topic to bring up Andy316 {thumb2}
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by whosurdaddy »

The_Champion wrote:I don't think you should have to "sugarcoat" your responses. People should stop being so sensitive. They should also stop being so naive towards their autographs. It's ridiculous how people absolutely believe that they got an authentic from an A lister, no matter how much evidence you show them. Most of the time it is the people who claim the autograph is authentic are the ones who start the arguments. They add lots of !!!!! and ????? and tell people they have no idea what they're talking about. If anything, the optimists should be censored, and the realists post the truth!
I absolutely agree
Nammzi wrote:Andy, I agree with you on this one, it isn't fair that the truth is contradicted by a rule that causes members to be argumentative with each other and create discussions in the feedback forum.

However, I don't see how it can be stopped unless we say that after a feedback has been posted, it is automatically locked so that only admin can reply, and that sort of defeats the purpose of the forum. People have different opinions on things, and while one person can be 100% sure it is fake, the next person will be 100% sure that it is authentic.

Could we have a forum just made to discuss the authenticity of autographs, but that could easily turn into a forum of arguments.

We could maybe make it so that only autograph experts can reply to topic in feedback? Because their information is more likely to be correct than the average member.
No disrespect to the members that are designated autograph experts but I've seen how these members became experts and I don't think that would be a good idea. I'll leave it at that.
autos.jasonw wrote:Our site is going to be turned into something like 'communist China' soon. You are only allowed to say that the autograph is 'real' and 'great success', 'well done'...
The problem is, especially with newbies, if the only thing they hear is 'its real'... they will really think it's real, when it's not!

I think the poll it put up speaks for itself:
http://www.fanmail.biz/mboard/viewtopic ... 14&t=74925
Therefor, from now on, I'm going to show a comparison on the 'real' autograph, and an IP success. Hope you guys would help, so our fellow members would not get mislead to beliving his autograph is real when it isn't!

This is an example on what I'm going to do:
http://www.fanmail.biz/mboard/viewtopic ... t=#p311297
Hopefully this time i'm not going to recive a threating message for my account to be banned by some moderators... who seem to have issues with me... all I did was show a comparison of 2 autographs, is anything wrong with that?

Jason.
Jason,
Here is the problem with posting an IP autograph to compare to. You actually have members on this site who will argue that the IP sig. was rushed and that the TTM sig. is authentic because the celeb. took their time. which is the most ludicrous argument I see on this site. A celeb looking at a stack of autograph requests is not going to sit their all day reading each letter and taking their time. They are going to blow thru those requests as fast as possible to get them done and their sig. will not change as dramatically as some claim on here.
army*gurl wrote:*lol* :lol: 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. :lol: and i'm not poking fun, by the way ;-) 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 :roll:

anyhow...good topic to bring up Andy316 {thumb2}
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by RuleroftheWorld »

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 " {down} {down} :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.
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by The_Champion »

I agree with your assessment of the JM system. I would say that a lot of them are very knowledgeable, but there are a few who are as clueless as anyone else on this site. That being said...I'm not saying that I know everything, far from it actually. If I am ever incorrect in posting something, I would want to be corrected. I apologize if I offended any JMs, but I think that the JM system is in great need of a change.
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by Atomic ant »

Oh dear.

Can someone please tell me whats going on :shock: I must admit, one of the main reasons I'm on the site is that it's so honest.

I'm quite happy to hear if an autograph is real or not, even if one of mine is not the real deal.

Please tell me what possible harm can this do.

An autograph website is just that, helping one another to get autographs, or have I missed something out?

This is now getting so confusing, that I'm having second thoughts about the whole thing :roll:
I had loads of theatre adderesses to post, which I have found, sadly maybe someone will get upset with that as well.
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by Nammzi »

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.
I agree with this, and if I do get to be a mod again then I'd be happy to help out on the feedback forum.

I agree that we shouldn't need to sugarcoat he truth, but I also know that if you have an autograph from one of your favourite stars and someone tell you that it is fake, then it can be very disappointing and disheartening for the person :(
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by whosurdaddy »

I wouldn't just point out the JM's on this site. Agreed the JM system is a joke but some of the MODS. on here are just as bad. I had what some consider a highly respected Mod. on here post a preprint swearing to it's authenticity, Give me a neg. feedback and basically write a book in the neg. write up on how I didn't have a clue blah blah blah. Like most would do and reciprocate with a neg. I simply pm'd him with a scan of another preprint. Same with an autopen on here Mods., autograph experts, everybody said it was authentic. I think I received 5 negs. on that post LOL. but indeed it was an autopen. What I'm trying to point out is that it's just not registered members and JM's but Mods. and autograph experts as well. I've been on this site since 2004. Don't let the name and join date fool ya I've had several. I've watched members become Mods,autograph experts and JM's and a admin added. I've seen knowledgable collectors come on here and try and make a difference and fight against the same problem we are talking about now only to get disgusted and leave. I highly doubt the authenticity issue will ever change for a positive and it's really unfortunate for the novice collector who uses this site and cares if their autographs are authentic or not.
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by miamizkitten »

Hello all....I'm new to this whole thing and I just wanted to say that I would rather be told if an autograph I collected was fake or AP or secretarial etc. I've only just started requesting autographs and find this site very useful with all the collectors that are on here. I have a few autographs that I have collected in person and I find the hobby to be quite fun.

Just wanted to put my 2 cents in, I would DEFINITELY want the opinion of others who have received the same print as me or has experience with the same celebrity. Not just "congrats its authentic" to make me feel better. Honestly, if I knew it wasn't real then I would just work harder at finding where I could send it to have better chances of getting a real one. For example "Via Venue" since I only really write to those celebs I truly like.
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Re: "Its not authentic" vs "Its authentic"

Post by Atomic ant »

Absolutely right {thumb2} whats the point of saying ok, just to please someone who has just recieved a PP or sec or autopen :mad:

If one is 100% that an autograph is not the real thing, what would you like that person to do, shut up just to make us happy I say bring it on. If I'm wrong then please tell me, and I will try another address, or go to an autograph show, I really dont mind at all.

Indeed I'm greatful {up}
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