Antiquity Collecting, UK Thuggish Louts and Their Doxxing

Tekkie terrorism:
attempted intimidation

Nigel Swift found out that on the Dark Side of the internet, there is a name for what repugnant collectors, treasure hunters and dealers like John Hooker, John Howland, Dealer Dave Welsh have recently been up to - hunting down and widely disseminating online personal data of the people they see as their enemies:

Update 13 November 2015 It seems that what Mr Howland has been doing has a precise name: “Doxxing: There are many forms of online harassment, trolling and abuse – but perhaps the most frightening abuses come in the form of DOXXing: posting (often publicly available) personal information online for the purpose of creating embarrassment and/or fear in the victim, enabling others to pursue more dangerous forms of harassment, and ultimately to silence the victim by driving them from public life.” [...]  If DOXXing is done with deliberate intent to cause fear, distress or harm or if it is done recklessly without reasonable concern for the consequences it is a crime. Malign intent is not going to be hard to establish in view of some of Mr Howland’s earlier statements. For example …. ““I have photos of him (Paul Barford) and of his sidekick (Nigel Swift). I’m anxious to let anybody who wants them, have them. In fact, some already have Swifty’s pic. As I’ve said before, if he (Paul Barford) is frightened for his own safety, or that of his family, he should have considered his actions and obnoxious posts before insulting all and sundry. Throw the shyster to the dogs, in the same way he’d throw our hobby, if he could, in the trash can. You’ve got him by the balls, don’t let him off the hook!” 

For my own part, yesterday I picked up two archaeologists from a local landscape archaeology project to give them a lift to Poznan. I was informed that in order to help them recognize me at the pickup point, their Director (who'd earlier written an enthusiastic text on 'metal detectorists and public memory') had given them a link to photographs of me in the Internet "you know on your website, the one where you have a cross on your forehead". The two archaeologists ended up being a captive audience to my 300km rant about just who UK metal detectorists are. They had a few tales about the damage that metal detectorists had done to their site and promised me a copy of their documentation. In Poznan, their Director learnt to her surprise that the website she'd directed her students to was not what she'd taken it to be, profuse apologies were in order - but a project is beginning to form in my head.

There are, by the way, no recorded instances of the sort of loutish behaviour directed towards archaeologists over here in Poland, it is English metal detectorists which seem to hold the dubious reputation of being the most LOUTISH in Europe.

TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for 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".  

Useful link for all feeling threatened by metal detectorists and/or antiquity collectors.