The Flow of Discussion Across an Imaginary "Bridge"

Winter landscape: fragile, slippery
and imaginary "bridge"

A long time ago the PAS was claiming it had "built a bridge" based on some "common ground between artefact hunters and archaeologists" (which it never defined properly). A recent discussion on a metal detecting blog illustrate the actual course of the flow of information across that imaginary "bridge" - built at an enormous public expense in both human and financial resources and the sacrifice of a large part of the archaeological record the same archaeologists should be protecting and conserving:

1) Detectorist writes post ('the Arrogant Detecting Thief" [sic]) full of errors, hyperbole and potentially libellous,
2) Barford corrects errors and comments,
3) Detectorist says he's not going to talk to Barford,
4) Shortly afterwards, detectorist personally approves for publication comments attacking Paul Barford - clearly intended to be inflammatory and annoying, e.g,  here, here, here  ,
5) Having himself approved for posting such comments , Detectorist then accuses Barford of being a "destabilising influence", blighting his "forum" (he sees his blog as a forum, with 'subscribers').
6) Tekkies start seeing the whole thing as a set-up (another tekkie conspiracy theory - (playing the victim) here, here, here, here, here and here. This seems to be emerging as the consensus view.
7) Detectorist suddenly ends discussion,
8) Detectorist cannot count, he says this is 1500 words.

Have a look at Mr Winter's blog and decide what to think of detectorists and their repetitive unwillingness to actually engage in any kind of meaningful discussion and debate, and repeated attempts to isolate their community from it, and instead of facing the problem (taking responsibility) continually making up excuses for the bad behaviour of fellow metal detectorists. Decide for yourselves who the detectorists' own worst enemy really is.

[In any case, if Mr Winter is so uninterested in what others think of the hobby and its wider context, he might explain why he has been over on my blog at least six times today, every two hours or so, and spending a while this evening reading a number of old posts].