The Voynich Ninja

(28-04-2020, 10:18 AM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Thanks for the link, Rene, I read, interesting. But what I find more interesting than the identification of plants is the deterioration of relations between this author and the rest of the Voynich community. ...  So I wonder if your criticism policy too severe has not produced results contrary to expectations? Perhaps a little more pedagogy is needed in order to attract the volunteers and supervise them instead of repelling them and letting them flourish in plagiarism.

P.S. I have not read its translation carefully, but I do not see how it's worse than other "translations", it takes at all to make a world.

My sense is that this community received Prof Cheshire's work the way it did because of a perceived lack of humility in the conclusions drawn, and the presentation overall. I have not read Cheshire, so this isn't my review of the paper. This is just me reading the vibe of the discussions his work generated here.

You raise an interesting point, Ruby. You're absolutely right in that it takes all types to make the world go round. That said, no subculture or social scene appeals to everyone, and Voynichology is no exception. There are potentially quite a lot of people out there who've been fans of the VMs and have some sort of valuable perspective to contribute to the discussion, but either will never find their way here, or if they do, won't feel at home here and won't stick around long enough to make their points really understood.

If anybody reading this is just getting into Voynichology and has some kind of insight about the VMs to share, but is new here and doesn't have any background in scholarship, feel free to PM me. I'd be happy to let you run your idea by me, and your thoughts for how you were going to present it here, and give you some kind and honest feedback. I haven't been around here long or published any VMs research. But I do have a lot of experience with scholarship in general, and have been around long enough to have a decent understanding of how things work around here. Plus mentoring somebody motivates me to tighten up my knowledge of the basic facts. I have potentially little to gain and lots to lose plagiarizing somebody else's idea and claiming credit for solving the VMs. This is why I have no problem promising confidentiality, and encouraging writing down and date-stamping any ideas before anyone tells me about them. Being the first person to hear about the solution from the solver personally would be more than enough rubbed-off gold dust for me.   It's really all about the journey, and the many things you see and characters you meet down the rabbit hole, at least for me.

I suppose that discussions about the perceived character of this or that would-be Voynich solver, or about this or that supposed theorist are a bit beyond what should be discussed here in this forum.

I've seen only too many times the argument that people are supposedly unable to change their minds because they have vested so much time in all this. That is amateur psychology of a sort that does not belong in any serious discussion forum.

What the Voynich MS is or is not, is a scientific issue, not a political debate that should be 'fought' using arguments about people's motivation, but based on discussions about the strength of the reasoning.

It's probably better to lock this thread. Feel free to make a new thread about any new paper that needs discussing.