4th January 2006, 01:29 PM
Troll,
I don't think that you could reasonably say that the IFA have never made 'one ripple in the pond of archaeology in all the years of their existence' - if that was so, we wouldn't be discussing them!
Just defining the standards is a significant achievement in itself, and gives everyone they can measure quality of performance against, irrespective of whether they have sufficient power to enforce them.
As outlined in the exchange between myself and Mercenary in this thread yesterday, enforcement is not solely an IFA responsibility, and where the standards are adopted by other institutions there are actually stronger powers than the IFA have.
I am a big supporter of BAJR, but I can't agree that it has achieved more than the IFA. It has a much narrower remit, and within that remit it has achieved a lot, but the IFA has done lots of stuff that lies completely outside BAJR's remit.
You have pointed out a lot of problems with archaeology - but you can't blame the IFA for them, they are the fault of government, local authorities, developers and general public attitudes. The IFA have no powers over any of the above.
As I said before, the IFA have 9 staff (admin included) - and they are all doing things. If you want them to take an active policing role, then they would have to stop doing what they are doing now, and shortly after the IFA would cease to exist. And anyway, 9 staff is way too small to achieve anything in the way of effective active policing - they would need dozens.
However, we all as archaeologists have a responsibility to support them, so we can all act as the 'active policing' side by identifying and reporting to the IFA. You say you have seen lots of breaches, and I previously asked you if you have ever reported one to the IFA - still no answer on that. If your can't be bothered to report to them (i.e. write one letter), how can you blame them for not taking action about the breaches you have seen?
Here's a test for you. ID the single worst clear breach of the IFA Code or Standards that you have seen in the past year and report it to the IFA. If there is no action from them after 6 months, you may have a valid complaint against them. But if you don't report anything to them, then stop blaming them for everything that is wrong in British archaeology.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished
I don't think that you could reasonably say that the IFA have never made 'one ripple in the pond of archaeology in all the years of their existence' - if that was so, we wouldn't be discussing them!
Just defining the standards is a significant achievement in itself, and gives everyone they can measure quality of performance against, irrespective of whether they have sufficient power to enforce them.
As outlined in the exchange between myself and Mercenary in this thread yesterday, enforcement is not solely an IFA responsibility, and where the standards are adopted by other institutions there are actually stronger powers than the IFA have.
I am a big supporter of BAJR, but I can't agree that it has achieved more than the IFA. It has a much narrower remit, and within that remit it has achieved a lot, but the IFA has done lots of stuff that lies completely outside BAJR's remit.
You have pointed out a lot of problems with archaeology - but you can't blame the IFA for them, they are the fault of government, local authorities, developers and general public attitudes. The IFA have no powers over any of the above.
As I said before, the IFA have 9 staff (admin included) - and they are all doing things. If you want them to take an active policing role, then they would have to stop doing what they are doing now, and shortly after the IFA would cease to exist. And anyway, 9 staff is way too small to achieve anything in the way of effective active policing - they would need dozens.
However, we all as archaeologists have a responsibility to support them, so we can all act as the 'active policing' side by identifying and reporting to the IFA. You say you have seen lots of breaches, and I previously asked you if you have ever reported one to the IFA - still no answer on that. If your can't be bothered to report to them (i.e. write one letter), how can you blame them for not taking action about the breaches you have seen?
Here's a test for you. ID the single worst clear breach of the IFA Code or Standards that you have seen in the past year and report it to the IFA. If there is no action from them after 6 months, you may have a valid complaint against them. But if you don't report anything to them, then stop blaming them for everything that is wrong in British archaeology.
1man1desk
to let, fully furnished