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A wee while ago I discussed what seems to me to be a slanted poll on a forum run by pro-collecting Scottish archaeologist David Connolly. The results however turned out to be rather interesting. Although Connolly's percentages don't add up, calculating them properly suggests that of those polled, 55% of respondents thought metal detecting should be banned. If this is a real index of the trend of opinion, that actually comes as a surprise to me, and I do hope the Portable Antiquities Scheme ("Britain's largest archaeological outreach") saw it too. Their policy of ignoring questions and issues raised from an archaeological viewpoint may be losing them support among archaeologists - which is as it should be. By isolating themselves from ongoing and developing discussion, they cannot hope to remain mainstream and perhaps are doing more to marginalise themselves than they realise.(Oh and by the way, I do not think "metal detecting" should be banned)