Members of the the Thesaurus treasure hunting club are of the opinion that this blog "censors" comments from metal detectorists. This is their excuse for not answering the comments I and others have made about their Offley artefact grabfest and other matters. Since they have never actually themselves sent anything to this blog which has then been censored, they are making this assumption based on rumour alone. Interestingly, this is not just internal tekkie-lore. They claim to have been told this by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (!). They assert "nasz [our] FLO" has in the past "próbował tam coś odpisywać ale w końcu i on dał sobie spokój [attempted to write something in response but even he in the end gave up]".
While it is true that the FLO that dealt with them (Julian Watters) has, in the four-and-a-bit years I have been writing this blog, been one of the few PAS staff to actually send any comment/response at all, it is not at all true that he has ever been censored. If that is what he said to Thesaurus, I particularly resent that false accusation. Julian Watters has sent one comment to this blog, and that comment was published, he has sent no other. I would thank the Portable Antiquities Scheme to at least tell their "partners" the truth and not make up stories to cover their inability to explain away the issues raised on this blog without upsetting their "partners".
Mr Watters, any time, any time you want to make a comment, please feel free, I guarantee you it will be published. That goes for all 38 FLOs, you have voices, don't you?
Just to clarify (once again), this blog has moderation of comments turned on, there are a lot of spam bots interested in advertising here, and some very nasty detectorists who'd love to post all manner of offensive and damaging material on this blog. I only refuse to publish comments from authors which have difficulty following the fairly simple requirements that I have put in the sidebar (see here) and I do not anticipate that any FLO will fall into that category.
To sum up - the silence of the FLOs on the portable antiquity collecting and heritage issues raised here cannot be excused by any alleged "censorship" on my part, but the reader may well consider that this would instead be attributable to entirely different causes. What they are, I leave up to them to decide.
CORRECTION:
It is not my blog, apparently, where I recall a comment by Julian Watters. It seems he wrote something to Heritage Action's. So Mr Watters has never been refused the opportunity of putting anything in front of readers of this blog (members of the public here too). Mr Watters, the invitation still remains.
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