"Lending Credence" or Revealing too much?

Detectorist John Winter plugs the blog of a fellow tekkie who he says is "speaking a lot of sense and attracting much attention". He warns him though to stop:

giving certain people credence by mentioning them so much.

This would be the certain people that write things about the problems with various areas of the collection of portable antiquities (of which UK "metal detecting" is just part) which are attracting a lot of attention. I guess the idea is an extension of the forum policy of "he-who-shall-not-be-named", that is intended to hinder forum members learning about the issues with archaeological collecting which people are talking about outside their own closed circle.

In fact this semi-literate (today's post: "I have took the day off work" Monday, 3 March 2014) has gone the way of several other blogs out there on the topic of metal detecting. By including texts attacking the "enemies of us detectorists" he hopes to attract just the sort of happy slapping behaviour we see in the largely anonymous and sock-puppeted postings that boost his readership figures. That blog has in the course of a few weeks descended from the ambition to be a flagship of "ethical detecting" to the mindless preservationist-bashing junk which brings popularity in the anglophone detecting world, but hardly encourages facing the issues.

The number of such blogs is on the increase, their general tone is not to listen to the critics, and attempt by various means to discredit them, rather than addressing their arguments by rational discussion - something one imagines somebody who's come through life and all the way through school not knowing the past participle of a common verb such as 'take' very probably is not actually capable of. So, we see the effects we do.