Changes in Management of The UK and European Metal Detecting Forum [UPDATED]

With regard what they claim is a misunderstanding

Some people will jump to conclusions and try and state we are trying to hide our content, this is completely untrue, Quite simply anyone can still register for Free and read all our content [emoticon], If we were trying to hide something surely we would lock the forums from registration?

I looked through the 'Board Rules' as they stand at the moment, seems like I should be safe there, no swearing ("no abuse, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “MDF Metal Detecting” is hosted or International Law").... no links to other metal detecting forums, no selling finds... fairly standard metal detecting stuff, So... waiting:

Paul Barford 21st April 18:00  Information Your account has been created. However, this board requires account activation by the administrator group. An email has been sent to them and you will be informed when your account has been activated.

And I will let you know how it goes.

UPDATE 21.04.2020
For the record, and to my surprise, my registration application was accepted within minutes. I wrote back and thanked them, and made a comment about the ID function of the forum being inactive to see what would happen and ... received a very cordial personal reply from Mr Rix. So now, with my little yellow metal detector, I am an officially accepted registered UK and European Metal Detecting Forum MDF member. I'll have to watch my step now...

UPDATE 22.04.2020
So, they had second thoughts. I should have called myself "Shazza" or "Mudgrubber" or "CoinsRmine" or something like that.... but I refuse to do that, I expect transparency from them, and I do not expect to have to hide my own identity to sneak around to see behind their closed doors.

In fact what I did to 'earn' this ban was to comment on a member's coin (perfectly sincerely) that it was a "fantastic find" (because it was) and noted that the wear showed how much it had circulated, which was odd as it was an obvious contemporary counterfeit - which is what it was posted as. I was perfectly polite, no swearing, no abuse, just a single and brief constructive comment. It is after all a moderated forum. Obviously a constructive comment from an archaeologist is a banning offence in the eyes of some tekkies. 

Yet if you recall, the excuse offered (above) for slamming those doors in everyone's face in the first place was precisely the perceived need to entice members to register and post on the forum, to keep it going. Forum traffic is connected with advertising revenue from all those metal detecting suppliers I guess. So now they are busy thinking of activities: "post a picture of a Roman emperor" and the suchlike, and hope that the show and tell will keep the forum active and keep that revenue coming in.  Yet it seems that getting people ('anyone' he said - but obviously was not sincere in that) actively using the forum is in fact NOT the real reason...

Anyway, although they do not want any constructive comments on the objects they show from an archaeologist, and apparently will discriminate and will ban 'anyone' from the board for doing so, I cordially invite all and any MDF members over here (no need to register) to read here about one guy's views about responsible metal detecting. If you run out of things to talk about over on the floundering MDF, feel free to comment here (my terms here, certainly far more liberal in many respects than Mr Rix's). Welcome.