Another Call for "Respect" for Looters

Another detectorist attempts to tilt at windmills (a comment by one 'Chrisg' from Macclesfield, Cheshire in the UK under the post of Monday, 16 September 2019 "Cornovii Discoverers" Pay-to-Take Artefact Hunters' Club: Call for landowners to "help uncover Shropshire's history" (aka "fill our pockets")'). Note that he does not actually address the points made in the text, just says that it is disrespectful to raise them:

You have a total lack of respect of what metal detectorists have contributed to the knowledge of many coins and artifacts found. If it wasn't for detectorists, archaeologists wouldn't know half of what they know. The items found in farmers fields would never see light again if they weren't dug up. Most finds made are from land that has been ploughed over the ages so no ruining the strata. Be grateful and not against. All I can think is that you are extremely jealous that you are not discovering these artefacts yourself. You sir are a grave robber. How's that back at you.

My reply:

"How's that?" is playground talk.

But "coins and artEfacts" are not "knowledge" any more than spotting a Maserati in the high street adds to our knowledge of engineering or metallurgy or the demographics of who drives them. Who told you they were?

"If it wasn't for detectorists, archaeologists wouldn't know half of what they know"... that is baseless rhetorical ignorant bollocks. In reality, it reveals that you have not the first idea of what archaeologists know and how they know it. How could you find out about that, I wonder, before making pronouncements like that which only reveal your ignorance?

Conservation is not about shooting all the rhinos so we can see their horns in foreign shops, is it? Why do you think the archaeological resource is not something that requires conservation? Because YOU want to get your hands on all the goodies for yourself, hang the information lost every time when contexts are trashed by keyhole digging by artefact hunters? Context is not just "strata" (a term, you should know, used more in geology than archaeology).

Nothing to be "grateful" to the rhino poachers and bird egg collectors for.

"Jealous" of those who think it's OK to be an immature, disrespectful and ignorant oaf, gaily destroying what others value, for personal entertainment and profit? No, jealousy does not come into it. I think here you are ascribing your own emotions to others.

I find it very ironic that the comment appears below a text that exhorts:

"Now, when, oh when, will British archaeologists get up off their backsides and explain that artefact hunters cherry-picking the archaeological record for collectables to have or sell, is not (in ANY way) "helping archaeologists and historians" (sic) and hoiking collectable bits out of the archaeological record is damaging it, not "preserving" it. When will we see archaeologists explaining that to folk instead of the usual dumbdown? "

The reality is that of course ChrisG did not even READ the post before shooting off a comment on it. This was not comment ON the content of the post above it, but a reaction to its mere existence. 

 When are we going to see British archaeology responsibly explaining to these people what their 'arguments" miss? We've had an attempt to instil "responsible detecting", let's have now some responsible archaeology, dealing responsibly with artefact collecting issues.