Discrediting Tactics Instead of Open Discussion

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Now there are people who ignore the issues I raise in my Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues blog, there are those who enter into the spirit of the debate and try to refute my arguments and opinions. Then there are the metal detectorists. How do they react? A glance through the comments section reveals none of them uses their real name, they send abusive posts full of aggressive phrasing and threats or just generally set out to be abusive and disruptive. I think I am right in saying that there is no more than a handful of comments written by UK metal detectorists ("passionately care about the past") that does not fall into that category.

Outside we see the same thing. The infamous photoshopped faux gay-porn photo send by metal detectorist "Belzoni" to the public access Portable Antiquities Scheme Forum which was one of the last of a series of disruptive events in response to broader discussion of the Scheme and its activities which led to it being closed down. Then we had the "Barfordisation" blog by "Steve Welton", author of a libellous "Wikipedia" page about me - mercifully gone. Now we have "Candice Jarman". Then within the last weeks the promise we'd soon see "hundreds" of metal detectorists opening blogs intending to "swamp" my blog and get it closed down "one way or another". So far the only new arrival on the cultural property blogosphere is by the sender of those words.

Now to give the bloke his due, this is the first one to actually use his real name, the rest have been hiding behind pseudonyms ("Candice" has even changed his gender to further throw people off the track). Steve Taylor is a real metal detectorist, well-known and not only in Gloucestershire, it seems. So anyway after finding that threats don't really work, he has set out on a one-man mission to save the reputation of English metal detectorists by swamping out what one bloke in Poland is saying about them in the wider context of collecting issues. So what arguments is he offering? Well, obviously, he wants people to think he is me, got himself a blogger URL similar to mine to maybe capture some of the traffic which might otherwise go to my main blog:
His: http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/
Mine: http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/
Spot the difference. Here's the profile of the "author" of this blog:


Now apart from the scatological "humour" that betrays this person's general educational level ("educated to 11+ standard but has fallen back ever since") he also accuses me of involvement in an illegal activity - "Interests: nighthawking". Passing on to the "content", the first post and the picture accompanying it sets the tone of the whole endeavour:

"Belzoni" all over again, and why not, they are old metaldetecting partners together. Please note the author managed to get all the way through a British school without lernink the diffrense between "there" and "their". Nor the difference between good and bad taste, or why normal people don't go around accusing somebody of an act which is illegal in the country where they live. "Strike two", Mr Taylor. "Antiquities" is spelt with an "i". A post made last night manages to insult my father, my wife and again accuse me (and her) of an act illegal in the country where it is alleged to have taken place (here stated as a 'fact' and not an allegation). "Strike Three" Mr Taylor. You are out.



So far, just four posts:
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barfords-new-book.html
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barfords-academic-history.html
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barford-early-years.html
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barford-caught-in-public-toilet.html

I commend a reflection on the contents of this new blog to any supporters of the Portable Antiquities Society, and any supporters of the Portable Antiquities Scheme as an excellent example typical of the mentality and lack of intellectual and emotional maturity of many a metal detectorist in the UK. These are the people current policy rewards for digging up the fragile remains of the archaeological record for entertainment and profit. These people are not, as ex-Culture-Minister Lammy once implied "alienated" and disinherited from society, here we see the process of alienation and the expression of self-centred entitlement operating in the other direction. Take a good look at this crudity, and then turn back to my blog and consider whether there is anything inherently unreasonable in what I say there about the need to reassess current policies on artefact hunting in the UK. And if there is, whether the metal detectorists' way of dealing with the problem as seen in Mr Taylor's blog is the most publicly acceptable one.


This rather looks like the way an English inner city hoodie would talk about somebody who gets in the way of doing what he wants to do, rather than an expression of views by a member of the community of people "caring about the heritage".

More [Spam] About New Portable Antiquities Collecting Issues Blogs

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Metal detectorist, stalker and vindictive email spammer Steve Taylor initially decided he would threaten me with this kind of stuff (23rd July 2011):

I don’t get banned off every detecting forum for being a nice guy, I’m more hated than you and that takes a lot of doing. I think I might write a blog about you Paul, and zero in on you house, with x marks the spot. You won’t get far with me because most of my houses are rented out. Maybe I should move out to Poland, we could be neighbours, I could even look after your kids, that would be nice.

Then more recently his aims got a lot more ambitious:

Hi Paul, the Paul Barfords blogs are coming on fine, should be on line soon. Trying to get several 100 detectorists to start one, so your site is swamped and falls onto the back burner where it belongs. [...] One way or another Paul, I will close your site down. Have a nice day.
Steve Taylor

One hundred literate detectorists writing about portable antiquity collecting issues, eh? That should be an interesting spectacle. Why don't they just open all their forums (like Mr Taylor's Portable Antiquities Society one) to public view so people can see that nothing untoward is being discussed by all those thousands of "responsible detectorists" out there?

So keep your eyes open for the "Orl Archie's R Tosser's" blog by Baz, "Finder's Keeper's Its Are Heritidge" blog by Shazzer the Shovel, and the NCMD blog "Archie Toffs, Get Orf Are Case" by Trev. Then of course from Surrey there will be the "Detecting Solicitors in Defence of Personal Artefact Accumulation" by a former High Court judge who has taken up metal detecting with the lads in his retirement; there are probably lots of those in metal detecting clubs up and down the country.

(If Mr Taylor's house near Cheltenham is rented out, that would explain the state of the former estate manager's garden).

Vignette: Who need's a spellcheck?

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Norman Kennedy Labels the Critics

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Personal coach Norman Kennedy has been mentioned here before, he seems to have a vendetta against people that talk about artefact hunting frankly and openly, now he is threatening to have me deported. Like that's going to happen, in Poland we lock people up for metal detecting and stealing archaeological artefacts, seriously. For more on Mr Kennedy (or is that "Bush"?) see an earlier post here. Now he writes:

As usual Paul Barford tells lies, says he lives in Poland and makes comments of no truth about Metal Detecting
in the UK.
Question should be asked" why do you live in Poland?
Why do you tell constant lies about metal detecting in the UK.
Why do you down talk about the good people of the UK who go metal detecting.
Why do you cause so much trouble.
I am going to ask the polish goverment if you are wanted.....you are wanted in the UK for liable.

If what Paul Barford is saying about artefact hunting , the artefact trade and a whole range of issues surrounding portable antiquities false then it is perfectly simple for the metal detectorists to demonstrate that. It is called debate. There should be open public debate about the way the archaeological heritage is being treated as a resource. I see my blog (open and public) as one element of that debate. Metal detectorists shut their words between each other away on forums which the public are blocked from seeing, and where they write anonymously using pseudonyms. That does not facilitate either debate with them, nor dialogue.

The only time they address the comments made by preservationists, is to call them "lies". But without stating the facts which they see as showing they are lies. They expect people to accept that what they say is true and what preservationists say is necessarily false. I say people should be able to look, consider both sides of the argument and the way they are put, and make their own minds up.

Mayhem and Disruption Among Yahoo's "Responsible Collectors"

Tim Haines, who runs Yahoo's AncientArtifacts forum for them says he appreciates my contributions, but is scared what would happen if they (he) allowed me back...

Altogether I'm not too worried about a bit of low level Barford. I would not wish to censor the group so that his views do not appear in it at all: as members well know I am a strong believer in free speech. Paul Barford did in fact provide a very valuable contribution to this group and raised awareness of the ethics of antiquities collecting enormously here.
Having said that, the huge disruption which was caused by his presence here outweighed the value of his contribution to such an extent that his continued membership of the group was simply not a viable option, and he will certainly not be reinstated.

Well, it is not wholly clear from this, is it, whether he is saying that I disrupted his group by criticising no-questions-asked collecting, or whether he was unable to control his "responsible collector" members and prevent THEM from disrupting the forum when I did. Anyone who cares to log on and look through the archives will, I trust easily discover that it is actually the latter. As he admitted to me, he had had enough of "the bickering and bitching of others caused by your posts and your presence". The root of a lot of the problems with the Ancient Artifacts discussion list is poor list leadership on Haines' part. Anyone who cares to log on and look through the archives will find this a frequently expressed opinion among members whenever one of the frequent unpleasant arguments breaks out on various topics (often with nationalist overtones in this international group) - and yet Haines hangs on.

Obviously for Mr Haines, it is easier to get rid of the topic of how precisely to practice the glibly-claimed "responsible collecting" than to manage a frank and open discussion about the topic when in fact the vast bulk of his members have little or no interest in how responsible is responsible. However and whatever they collect, they all nevertheless consider themselves as "responsible" because they belong to a "responsible collectors' discussion list". That is despite the fact that responsible collecting is not really discussed there in any detail, but they "have" got a Code of Ethics (compare it with this). Big deal if it means nothing.

There is a clear parallel with UK metal detectorists who were all "responsible" until PAS produced a Code agreed with a number of other organizations defining that term. Then they found it necessary to write an alternative code so they could all fit in the alternative definition... Yahoo's artefact collectors evidently prefer just to shut their ears to any kind of questioning what exactly is meant by "responsible collecting" and cannot cope with their glib assertions being questioned. They start "bickering and bitching" amongst themselves.
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The Tale of Brave Sir Dave

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It seems to me that there is basically something rather cowardly in Dave Welsh's actions posting his attack on the Ancient Artefacts discussion list with 2500 members and moneta-l with another few thousand from which I am excluded from answering. It seems to me that there is something very cowardly in Tim Haines' moderation of what he fondly imagines to be a forum about "responsible collecting", allowing such attacks on a non-member without allowing the victim the right of reply. Moneta-L long ago gave up the pretence of being interested in any open discussion of the issues.

Brave, Brave Sir Dave. Hiding behind his mates and discussion group exclusive moderation. You would not like to say the same to my face here or on my other blog would you? Thought not.

You Tube Clip from Monty Python's "Ye Pretencie of Responsible Coin Collecting for ye Weake of Response".

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Anti-Barford Again

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I feel discriminated against. At least when the Americans wanted to do a smear campaign against the elusive figurehead of Wikileaks, it appears he got a couple of free screws with two ugly slutty sex-on-first-date girls (one a "Christian") out of it. All I get is a decidedly unsexy balding obese coin dealing Jesuit-trained engineer from California attempting to misrepresent my professional biography in a post called " [Unidroit-L] Anti-Barford Blog [was RE: [Moneta-L] Arrests of 40 Spanish Coin & Antiquity dealers]" which has been cross-posted to an interesting selection of people: Tim Haines' Yahoo Ancientartifacts group, 'Moneta-L' (of course), Yahoo's CoinForgeryDiscussionList (eh?), dug-up scrap metal coin collector Scott Uhrick, and antiquity dealer 'Edgar Owen' . The text is extraordinary:

From what is reported in this blog, it seems that Mr. Barford left university with a “bac” after being enrolled in a graduate program that would normally lead to a doctorate. He has never publicly explained how that happened, nor has he published a CV detailing his education and subsequent contributions to archaeology.

Mr. Barford next was employed (rather briefly) in junior positions in archaeology in the UK before relocating to Poland in 1987, where he apparently has lived ever since. He was employed there in a junior academic position (assistant lecturer) and as an inspector of monuments. So far as I know, the above is all that is publicly recorded regarding his work as an archaeologist. If anyone can add to this, or correct any errors, I would be grateful for the information. Mr. Barford has a number of professional publications to his credit, including one book [The Early Slavs] with another in the process of publication.

To the best of my knowledge he is not presently employed in any sort of archaeological work, nor has he been so employed for a long time, although he did make a trip to Egypt not long ago where he had a chance to do some field work (it wasn’t clear whether this was as a volunteer). I have heard that he presently supports himself as a translator.

If the above is a fair appraisal of Mr. Barford’s actual professional credentials, one might question whether such a foundation is really in proportion to the critical edifice he has built upon it. Mr. Barford has been very free with criticism directed at those whom he sneeringly terms “coineys,” especially “coineys” who are also dealers.

In none of his remarks has he said anything about the professional qualifications of those whom he so freely criticizes. I think it’s fair to observe that many of his “targets” have resumes far more impressive than his own, and that Mr. Barford appears to know (or care) very little about numismatics.

Not a sex scandal in sight. Damn! I am not sure what a "bac" is, but I don't think I've got one - but if somebody explains maybe I have without knowing it...

Is it my imagination or has Mr Welsh 'accidentally' forgotten a couple of degrees that Candy mentioned, and it seems he's got the sequence of "events" wrong. Supposedly I was "employed (rather briefly) in junior positions in archaeology in the UK". He also does not know when I "relocated". Neither is the position of "Inspector of monuments" in the Ministry of Culture a particularly "junior" position. Mr. Welsh claims to know my current archaeological employment history. Sadly he obviously knows less about all this than he thinks.

It seems to me that the internet-scholars of the Candy-Tompa-Welsh ilk are not particularly adept at using the resources available, Google Scholar gives more than just a handful of items published by me and from what I can see, that's about one third of what it says on my CV (which does not list translations).

Frankly I do not think explaining how whatever-it-is "happened" or publishing a full CV is one of the qualifications for being a blogger (even an "archaeoblogger").

So far as I know, the above is all that is publicly recorded regarding his work as an archaeologist. If anyone can add to this, or correct any errors,
I would be grateful for the information.

You know, archaeology is a pretty small world, I think various people all over the place have come across me, worked with me, quarrelled with me about methodology in a conference beer bar, or got really angered off by things I write and say - not just about metal detectorists etc. (Got a long screed out of the blue this morning about a chapter in a multi-authored publication, which is odd because its still in press). Whether or not these people really want to make contact with dirt-digging coiney people like Mr Welsh of course is a different matter. What's in it for them?

If the above is a fair appraisal of Mr. Barford’s actual professional
credentials, one might question whether such a foundation is really in
proportion to the critical edifice he has built upon it.

One might I suppose. If it were a FAIR appraisal and one was interested in personal issues.

Frankly I think the words of the coin dealers speak for themselves about what lies behind them, and I imagine mine do too. Mr Welsh's various writings about how ancient coins are found have as much weight whether or not we have ever seen a recent full length photo of him cuddling his rabbits on the internet, or a date-marked photo of him as a young man getting his engineering degree certificate from the Jesuit University of wherever-it-was. What he says about sites and hoards and all the rest is just as much nonsense for the reasons I have set out on my main blog, points he has never actually answered. No amount of look-at-me self advertising will change that.

I do not think I build any "edifice" on any imagined "personal authority" (neither does Wikileaks, whether or not Julian Assange is in jail or not does not change the contents of the leaked documents themselves one iota). I base my comments on the antiquities market on observing and interpreting what is going on, and invite every one of my readers to do the same. You do not need an archaeology degree to see that what is happening out there is highly questionable.

I'd say lets start asking the questions of the no-questions-asked collectors and dealers and ignore the slings and arrows and false arguments they spew out to stop those questions being asked. Let us see them actually address the issues raised instead of saying that this or that member of Joe Public is not qualified to be asking these questions. These are clearly questions that ALL the stakeholders in the past should be asking.

Numbers.... Black is White and Mine is Bigger than Yours

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This seems the sort of silly yes-it-is-no-it-isn't argument which belongs on my metal detecting nonsense ghetto blog.

I like to keep an eye on who is reading what on my main blog and have noted that over the past few months it seems to have generated an expanding readership, which I find interesting and encouraging to compare with the blogs that give out the damaging propaganda for no-questions-asked collecting of dug up antiquities.

Peter Tompa started his blog before me, and not long ago was boasting he'd had 50 000 hits, which prompted me to look at my own counter and was interested to note that a few days after that, the number of hits to my own rants, comments and observations passed 150 000. Not long ago it passed 200 000 while Tompa's has still not reached 70 000. So the word is getting around, despite my own blog being a rather niche interest thing.

Dorothy King (Blogs and Cultural Property Propaganda ) disputes these figures:

What's that quote ...? "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" Just out of curiosity I looked at Paul Barford's blog figures, since he made such a point of gloating over his blog being more read than those of "coiney" types, and promoted Gill's table as proof to support his theory. Gill gives him 75 to 80 readers, Google Reader 1.

Aha, one reader? So on the days recently when there have been as many as 700 people looking at the blog, Ms King would have us believe that it is the same person, and the ninety or so "returning visitors" a day shown by the tracking software is the same bloke running for some reason from one computer to the next on at least two separate continents? Day after day.

King gloats that a blog she calls "Barford's nemesis, the butt of so many of his posts, Peter Tompa's Cultural Property Observer" has 58 subscribers.

Tompa has 58 times the subscribers of Barford, which does not tally with Gill's table ...

that is assuming that the PACHI blog does indeed have one subscriber. She notes Candice Jarman's recent efforts to contribute to the discussion:

I think starting a blog devoted to Paul Barford was wrong, but ... it has four times the subscribers of Barford's main blog [...]. And I admit that I do find that rather amusing.

So do I, since the actual identity of the author's followers on the home page is shown as six. Ms King claims about herself: "I can be a bit OCD - my footnotes are always accurate, and I like to be thorough with my research. So, I thought I'd check. And the results were surprising". Indeed, a bit of checking would be in order before she calls somebody a liar, because of course this lays one open to having claims like this checked too.

I do not know what figures Dorothy King is using for the readership of my PACHI blog, she says they are from Google Reader. When I looked just now, instead of "1" it says on my screen quite clearly "Liczba subskrybentów: 78". (Number of Subscribers 78). [But in fact what I was talking about was not subscribers but the number of people that have found or revisited my blog and looked at some of what I'd written.] I suspect that, in her efforts to come to the rescue of the honour of writers like Peter Tompa, the poor lady has in her haste mistaken the PACHI blog with this one (which last time I looked did indeed have - for reasons which are unfathomable since it deals exclusively with nonsense like this - one subscriber). *

But this cannot be the whole explanation. Something else is clearly going on here. She says:

Gill's (sic) Blogging Pompeii has well over a hundred subscribers. According to Google Reader it has 22.

On my screen, "Blogging Pompeii" has Liczba subskrybentów: 117 so more or less what Gill stated and not the reduced number PhDiva gives.

Looting matters, Ms King suggests has 68 while on my screen it says: Liczba subskrybentów: 290 so again the number Gill gives rather than the 'revised' figures Ms King would prefer her readers to believe.

So from where does Ms King get the 'revised' figures on the basis of which she makes her claims that the Swansea academic's comments (and my own) on online readership on cultural property matters are false? All very odd.

*UPDATE: For reasons which are even more unfathomable, it seems now to have four. I'll have to be more careful of what I say here now.
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Illustrating the words

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Candice 'Gotcha' Jarman (who is probably a bloke) is disturbed by the fact that I try to make the pages of my texts about portable antiquites issues more palatable by putting pictures on them. Candice reckons there is something wrong with that:

Mr Barford regards the picking up of a Roman coin from a field as theft ...

wait, stop right there, I bet she cannot show anyone where I said that this is what I think:

...and yet he is happy to freely appropriate other people's artwork to illustrate his blog. If he see's an image on the internet, then he regards it as free for his taking - never mind the rights of struggling artists and designers. Does Mr Barford pay royalties to the owners of the images he is so happy to steal? Perhaps he would like to tell us.

No I do not. In the same way as she herself does not for those which she has posted up on her own blog, those for example that purport to show me (the copyright of which belongs to three different people) or the one she took from my Facebook profile. The artwork she uses with the mice has been stolen from the now-defunct "Barfordisation" (sic) blog by somebody calling himself "Bufet the Phantom Pie Slayer" who I presume drew them himself. In none of these cases does Candice indicate the source from which she took these pictures. I am assuming the reason why "she" does not feel the need to do this with Buffy's artwork is that she's really giving out the message that "Buffy is Back!".

If she would check the captions of each of the illustrations I use (unless I have forgotten which can of course happen) the source is given on the first use. I do not always give the source on the second use of the same vignette. In a number of cases where it seemed important to do so, I have contacted the owners of an image and obtained their permission to use them. In none was permission refused and I have had some nice correspondence with people about the issues raised by the posts in which I have used their illustrations. In many cases it seems the illustrations come from blogs where the blogger does no indicate where they got them from, so I link to them.

Also at the very beginning of my blog is a statement about the use of photos which I believe comes under 'Fair use'. I do however explicitly state that if anyone has an issue with my use of material to which they have the copyright to contact me and I will take it down.

In fact I have only been asked to do this twice. Once was when "Sheddy" Lincoln a Canvey Island garden shed retailer (with a penchant for sending Polish policemen dog excreta in a box through the post) made a fuss about a photo I reproduced showing the PAS table at a rally. He initially wanted me to pay him royalties for using it, but then did not. At the same time however the PAS lady which it showed (whom he'd photographed without her permission) also requested me to take it down. Her reasoning was that it did not show the PAS in the best light and the public clearly has not the right to know what a PAS lady in the middle of a field doing her liaison looks like. I took it down and started this blog (look what its really called) and put a white fluffy bunny picture on my blog.

Obviously UK metal detectorists are more concerned about the pictures I put on my blog than the words that surround them, here's another one.

There's Fieldwork and there's Fieldwork: What does Candy Know about it?

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"Candice Jarman" says 'she' is a secretary who has "metal detectorist" friends and is aided by the members of the Yahoo so-called "responsible collecting" forum run by Tim Haines. Both are apparently aiding and encouraging her to write a "Paul Barford - Heritage - The Truth" blog. The author calls me “the Embarrassment of antiquities conservation” and adds: "don’t his supporters realise that he convinces no-one and just damages their cause by his strident, crass, dismissive posts rubbishing all those who dare to voice an alternative view". So she has set out to try and "rubbish" what she says are "misrepresentations of the truth", "distortions of the facts" to further an "anti-detecting, anti-collecting, anti-PAS agenda". She has not got very far however with that task, dithering about trying to find photographs of "what Paul Barford looks like" - as if it mattered to my ability to write about no-questions-asked collecting.

One might wonder about a secretary's ability to be able to address any of the archaeological issues I raise, given her all-too-apparent total lack of any knowledge about the discipline. This is clearly revealed by 'her' comment to one of the photos that she has obviously been told shows me [I suspect I know by whom, and that person has never met me either]:

Here is another picture of Mr Barford doing archaeology it seems. The public kept at a respectful distance.....

Regardless of who is visible in the photo, what is actually shown is an exhumation to obtain a DNA sample carried out in 1998 in central Poland by an experienced forensic anthropological team from the United States. It was carried out under and in full compliance with a licence issued by the Polish Church and all relevant local legislation, the archaeologists are there as support to the anthropologists. The aim was not the full archaeological excavation of a grave of 1864, and neither was I in charge of this project. If I had been, there would have been more than a police-tape barrier, but screens as is usual in such exhumations, out of respect for the deceased. In this case however the public could only see the outside of the vault not what was hidden deep in its dark interior. Forensic exhumations of human remains - and especially not those in the state these were - are not places for gawkers. I think if she knew anything about it at all, Ms Jarman would be aware that a nineteenth century burial ground clearance or murder scene investigation in even in Great Britain is not a ghoulish spectacle they sell tickets for gawkers and bystanders to go and watch.

So yes, in any exhumation of this nature, the public would be kept at a truly respectful distance.*

Not like the metal detecting page I was reading on Thursday written by somebody 'Candice' may even know (as it was from near where 'she' says she lives), where the writer is laughing about the fragments of a human skull shown - that his detecting mate had dug roughly through a human skeleton "thinking it was a dog". Now that is what I call really "disturbing the dead" and grave robbing - they even took the skull home. What "fun", eh Candy? What a wonderful advertisement for "responsible" artefact hunting in the UK.

[*] Note: the photo she uses was taken with a long focal length lens and (among other things) in order to give the team room to work, the distance between the barrier and open vault was in fact greater than it appears.
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