Gone, PAS's Dr Vincent Drost gone.

On Monday, Dr Vincent Drost instantly boosted the figures on the official record of voluntary reports of non-Treasure items by recording on it an estimate of "22000" of some items, presumably coins from a hoard. In other words Treasure. It seems that the moment that was pointed out and was discussed, Dr Drost became a persona non grata in the PAS. The evidence of this is that the PAS is now hiding the record of his work  from the public. Yesterday there was the usual tab (all recorders working within the Scheme have them) "view all records made by ...." for him on his PAS profile page. Today (21.41 pm) Dr Drost's has gone. Yesterday you could look and see what the millionth-find-man has been recording (and jolly revealing it is too, when it comes back I intend writing about it). Today you cannot.

What on earth is the PAS playing at? Why are they selectively hiding information? They are behaving like a now-you-see-it, now-you-don't metal detecting forum (which is not by any means meant as a compliment). Why are they manipulating data by selectively hiding them instead of making them available for public scrutiny? Why can we not count on even a modicum of transparency from the state-funded organization charged with making Britain's artefact hunters behave more transparently. Bring back Dr Drost's records please. The public who pay through the nose for them deserve to be able to see them !

TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for these are precisely the sort of people that want to grab more and more millions of public quid to make artefact hunters into the "partners" of the British Museum,  and to whom they want us all to entrust oversight of the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".