Renewed Focus on UK Metal Detecting: Hugo and his Epithets

With depressing frequency the some attempt of metal detectorists to engage with the concerns raised by preservationists takes the form of accusations of falsehood or ignorance and/or name calling. So it is with an exchange over on Heritage Action's blog under the post about deep-seeking metal detectors (here). So this time it is Scandinavian detectorist Hugo Falck from somewhere near Stavangar in Norway chimes in, convinced that he alone has all the answers to the concerns raised and that there is no fundamental problem with current policies on metal detecting.

First he tells Nigel Swift, of all people, that in raising the concerns he does he is "...Biased and with no knowlegde about “tecting and detectorist your making a fool of yourselves!" This is because: "First of all most detectorist would never dig deeper than ploughlevel even if they could...". Then he goes further telling Nigel Swift that in the UK "It`s banned to dig underneath ploughlevel isnt it?" (no, no, it is not). Then he gets personal:

Happily quite few arch[aeologist]s i know are as paranoid as you guys in Heritage action and HAPPAH, some of them even detect themselves, and with your silly, absurd “Artefact Erosion Counters” none of us will ever be taking you guys serious! Your problems are in your own imagination, i refuse to believe you have any experience with detectorists IRL, and the whole environment of detectorists are provoked by you, HAPPAH and Paul Barford cause no one of you are being honest, with lies and fabrication you try to do your best to draw a picture of metal detectorists as criminal looters, all tarred with the same brush of lies!

Hmm. It is easy to say that these three, Heritage Action, HAPPAH and Barford  are "liars and fabricators". Metal detectorists do it all the time. They typically never quite manage to take the discussion that tiny step forward to show where precisely these alleged falsehoods lie.

I cannot answer for Heritage Action nor the French guys, but in my case I would answer Hugo Falck thus:

On this blog, in discussing artefact hunting I quite frequently take specific cases. I find sombody has said something - for example on a metal detecting forum. I say what that person says, I give a link so my readers can check out that I am not making it up, and so they can see the full context of the artefact hunter's remark. I cannot see where there is room for "lies and fabrication" there.

I then say what I think of what was said, I place it in the context of the wider phenomenon. That Mr Falck is what we call in English an "opinion". I have an opinion about what I read, and I am writing to share it. It is my honest opinion. I do not know where you see there, either, any scope for "lies and fabrication" - do you think I am writing something which is not my honest opinion? Why would I do that?

Perhaps Mr Falck would want to accuse me of taking comments out of context and that in some way constitutes my "lies and fabrication". But then what I draw attention to in each blog post on the topic has a context, in a discussion of real artefact hunters saying real things on real artefact hunters' discussion forums, and you will see that at the end of many posts (as I will no doubt do at the end of this post) I encourage my readers to register with as many of these forums as they can stomach and see for themselves what goes on there. That does not seem to me to be logical behaviour for someone who is allegedly spreading "lies and fabrications" about what goes on in such forums.

What, however, is very telling, Mr Falck, is what happens when I do that. Check it out for yourself. Try and follow a link from this blog, "Bazza Thugwit says (8th March 2013, 4:00 am)...". Lo and behold in most cases the link is now broken (I make a point of checking each before I post my text). Most of them lead to a page that says "this topic does not exists". Now why would the forum moderators be doing that is what I am saying is a "lie"? Let people follow the link, and see for themselves that what I said is written there differs from what actually was written there when I accessed it. That is the way to prove me a liar. Or if you think I am taking quotes out of context and making something look bad which is in fact entirely innocent, well, once again, leaving the original post and original thread intact and visible is the best way to discredit my argument - and one requiring NO EFFORT at all. So, why, Mr Falck, do you think (assuming the forum moderators are sane people of average intelligence), time and time again the links I give to material I am discussing are broken by the forum administration? Is it because I am making a palpably false claim, or because what I say is uncomfortably close to an uncomfortable truth that detectorists do not want aired? Well, Mr Falck up in Norway can think what he likes, but logic suggests to the rest of us one answer, and one answer only.

Mr Falck of course offers not a shred of evidence for his claim that the Heritage Action Artefact Erosion Counter is "absurd" (though is he claiming that "the archies I know" told him it is?).


Do please register on a few metal detecting forums and take a good look. These are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the
British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy". What have these forums got to hide?

Vignette: Hugo ("I've got all the answers, you is stupid") Falk is in the Rygene Detektorklubb with its nationalistic logo.