Welcome to the BB and the hobby!

You wrote:

"It was my understanding that this medium was primarily for sharing information that is important to chip collectors."

Very often, information is shared with an opinion attached to it, or the information itself is an opinion. Opinions are often responded to with emotion (and more opinions.) ....as it should be. We are all people, all different with a common interest brought together in this forum. I can safely say that I've met at least a third of the folks that post to this forum in person, maybe as many as half of them. Given the uncensored nature of this forum, even during heated discussions (and you haven't seen what a heated discussion is if you haven't been here long enough to already know that Rene is Chipdeals on eBay) the people involved for the most part are friends, and remain friends after having heated discussions.

This hobby doesn't need to be saved "by the gods", but it does need to be protected from outside forces that have nothing to do with collecting. ...like slabbing and grading, and hoarding limited edition releases.

Bob