Focus on UK Metal Detecting: John Winter on Getting the "members"

Metal detectorists both sides of the Atlantic seem to have a fixation about whether or not they are listened to. One approach is to write such outrageously abusive material about those nasty "archaeologists" to attract attention of like-minded guffawing oafs, the Stout Blog over in Texas is an extreme example of this genre ("Who knows who John or I will piss off next…"). The other is to get people to 'subscribe' as like-minded followers. John Winter shares his hidden hopes:

Thank you all of those who have subscribed to my blog in the last few days. My followers now total 190. I hope to reach 200 by Christmas … if not before! 

I suspect the answer to the question of why the last few days have seen so many subscriptions may be found on one of the detecting forums near you. Anyhow, a commentator expresses his admiration that in a community of over ten (possibly sixteen) thousand, two hundred have subscribed to the Winter blog and eggs his mates on:

QM 17 August 2013 at 2:30 pm

my goodness john …how things have changed with members numbers in the last year …..so come guy’s and girls ….lets get john them other 10 members …its should be a walk in the park …just tell ya mates to subscribe …its free and quick to do ..

Of course blogs have authors and followers, not "members". Unlike the 'Texan' model of blog referred to above, Winter's blog deserves more readers among the artefact hunting fraternity, it is almost one-of-a-kind in being interesting, witty and well written (its author is/was an English teacher so knows "spellin' and punctuashun" which as can readily be observed are arcane mysteries for many tekkies; let them read and learn). He also writes on topics unrelated to the nerdyiness of the technology, but about the objects themselves and their significance, good examples of the "narrativisation" that underlie this type of collecting. This is useful as it articulates some of the thinking behind what these collectors do. He also has a slightly more balanced approach (most of the time) to some of the issues with artefact hunting and how to go about discussing them. It is a shame he has so few emulators, but if more people read his blog, maybe more might be tempted to pick up the keyboard and let us know what tekkies are thinking. Who knows?

Go on, make an old man very happy, subscribe to his blog  (http://www.johnwinter.net/jw/), see what some tekkies do and what others think.  Get the other side of a complex picture.

UPDATE
I've just subscribed (and commented), he only needs a few more now to reach his goal. Anyway, I've made him doubly happy, this is from another forum:

I've been Barfordised!! http://bit.ly/14Ku3uo  The visits to my blog have increased ten-fold. 

and the rest of them complain when I comment on what they say. Who would it be then, coming first to my blog and then referring to his? Metal detectorists?