David and I are serious about turning the interviews into a series, and the next person we'll have a chat with is Stephen Bax.
It would be great if we could get some questions from the forum community to include in the interview. So don't hesitate to propose any questions in this thread!
I would be interested to know Stephen's opinion about the marginalia (in particular, You are not allowed to view links.
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Regarding his current look at the manuscript, I would be interested in whether the "Tat language" could be in the focus of research ( in one of it's variants).
I think what you are doing is GREAT, great work, very interesting and a good direction and I think your choice of the first person to interview was a good one.
But I'm going to be completely blunt here...
Since his views on the manuscript are controversial and unproven, I would rather see Stephen Bax in a debate with someone with a good reputation who holds different views from his than to see a question-answer format interview with SB.
I think it would be of greater benefit to the community and to Voynich research in general if the format chosen acknowledges whether the person's contributions are substantive (a curator or someone close to the history of the manuscript itself is a good choice because he or she has hands-on knowledge of the physical properties that most of us can never have) or speculative (in which case a debate or panel format with two to four people is far more likely to yield useful insights than giving a platform to an individual).
Unfortunately, the mere act of interviewing someone whose ideas are unproven, and sometimes strongly contested, seems to give that person a certain amount of "credibility by association" and you have to ask yourself whether that's the best way to use the time and resources of the Voynich community, and whether it will bring out information that furthers Voynich research. When it comes to unproven theories I think a panel format of people with a variety of views is more likely to be beneficial.
Hi JKP,
Let me disagree with you here.
First of all, Dr. Bax is not the first random guy picked out in the street. He is a professional linguist. So given his interest in the VMS (which is not that common among folks from academia), it would be interesting to approach him at least with some linguistical questions (e.g. such as I suggested above).
Second, I'm sure that he is not approached in his role of a "Voynich-guru" or "Voynich-preacher" but in the role of an expert who has developed his own views and opinions on/about the VMS. The fact that his views are contested (and I am one who would contest them) does not mean, for example, that some objections to his views cannot be discussed in a direct interview. For example, the low entropy issue. Or another issue which has never been raised before yet - but it should be, by all means: namely, what explanations of the gallows coverage would a natural language theory put forward. And so on.
About the panel format. In theory, it would be interesting indeed to have something in that format. But, first of all, it's much more difficult to arrange and record a panel - in terms of management and technical side of things (while the latter, to be honest, is far from perfection yet). And, which is perhaps even more important, it is difficult to produce a good panel, in terms of selection of participants and managing (moderating) the talk. Recall the political debates. Basically, there are two main variants of those. The first one is when all participants approve of the government, and then the debate is exceptionally boring. The second one is when some of them disapprove of the government and, as a consequence, - of each other. In that case the audience beholds much hubbub and occasional scuffle. Same thing would be true for the highly controversial topic such as the VMS.
Yes, I agree, panels are more difficult to arrange (and it's harder to get experts to agree to participate because supporting and defending their ideas is more difficult than having a platform to themselves).
But what is more important? Doing what is easy or doing what is right and best for the research community?
I would not object to hearing about linguistics from a linguist, but I do not agree with any of SB's linguistic interpretations of the VMS and these interviews are about what can be added to our knowledge of the VMS.
I will explain more fully why this disturbs me...
Before the voynich.ninja, SB's blog became a forum for ideas because one was needed. At first I thought this was a good thing. I saw excellent ideas by Ellie, Marco, Worley, Zandbergen, and many other forumites posted on Bax's site.
But when I went to other sites and saw these articles being referenced and quoted, the credit was almost always given to SB, NOT to the person who wrote the articles! I saw this time and again and found it deeply troubling and was 200% supportive of the forum when it was started because I felt it was more neutral and more likely to garner credit for those who actually DID the research and took the time to post it.
I am concerned that what will happen in a video interview is what happened with the SB blog, because of the massive publicity that he has received, I'm worried that SB will summarize or quote the research of others and get credit for their ideas for the simple reason that all the publicity has put his name in the spotlight and audiences have this habit of assuming the speaker as the source.
If we are asking questions of experts, then keep it to specific questions about their field. I have no objection to that.
If we are asking questions of people with Voynich theories, unproven ones, contested ones, then it should be a panel format with input from more than one person, otherwise the very act of interviewing the person implies an endorsement of their ideas and this is not a good thing.
I would be fascinated by an interview with Stephen Bax. Despite garnering a surfeit of media attention, his theory about the linguistic nature of Voynichese has so far received almost no critical attention, apart from a hostile and disbelieving slap from Cipher Mysteries:
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Three years of his failed promises to shore up the bus-wide holes in his reading means my personal opinion remains as per the blog post. If he's any better than Stellar, I haven't seen the evidence.
(27-08-2017, 04:05 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Before the voynich.ninja, SB's blog became a forum for ideas because one was needed. At first I thought this was a good thing. I saw excellent ideas by Ellie, Marco, Worley, Zandbergen, and many other forumites posted on Bax's site.
But when I went to other sites and saw these articles being referenced and quoted, the credit was almost always given to SB, NOT to the person who wrote the articles! I saw this time and again and found it deeply troubling and was 200% supportive of the forum when it was started because I felt it was more neutral and more likely to garner credit for those who actually DID the research and took the time to post it.
I am concerned that what will happen in a video interview is what happened with the SB blog, because of the massive publicity that he has received, I'm worried that SB will summarize or quote the research of others and get credit for their ideas for the simple reason that all the publicity has put his name in the spotlight and audiences have this habit of assuming the speaker as the source.
As far as I know, Stephen Bax has always acknowledged his sources, both on his blog and in his papers.
If there are people who carelessly quote his blog failing to appropriately credit specific contributors, this is their problem, not Stephen's.
I think the problem with the Voynich community is not so much that when ideas are quoted the authors are not credited, but that bad ideas are more often quoted than good ideas.
My intention is to look for a certain balance. On the one hand, I don't want participants to feel very uncomfortable. But on the other hand it's not just a promotional show either and there can be critical questions. Feel free to propose some!
(27-08-2017, 04:18 PM)nickpelling Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I would be fascinated by an interview with Stephen Bax.
I should perhaps add that Bax would probably run a mile if he thought I was going to be involved in any interview.
And also that if you give him an easy time, you should relaunch Voynich.ninja as Voynich.chicken.