The Voynich Ninja

That's great. I guess one might argue that when a theory manages to attract mainstream media attention, a critical note on the wiki is valid.

I think it is difficult as why some theories should be represented in wikipedia is debatable. In English wikipedia it lists:

William Romaine Newbold
Joseph Martin Feely
Leonell C. Strong
Robert S. Brumbaugh
John Stojko
Stephen Bax
Nicholas Gibbs
Greg Kondrak
Ahmet Ardıç

Should any of these people be there?

Newbold's theory is one of the least plausible. Why should he be there, is it just because his theory is one of the earliest?

Are the theories there on the basis of the amount of publicity that they have received not on the basis of the merits of the theory?

(16-12-2021, 08:37 PM)Mark Knowles Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Should any of these people be there?

I think it is okay to present historical and current theories in Wikipedia. You don't have to find each one plausible, everyone can form his own opinion about it. It is just not good to emphasize single theories by treating them unreasonably detailed. With obviously untenable theories this is admittedly even more difficult to accept than with halfway comprehensible approaches.

I think Newbold's interpretation of the VMs cosmos is significant because it shows how wrong one can be.

And unlike linguistic theories, where one hypothesis merely contradicts / replaces another, the investigation of the VMs cosmic illustration has opened a path to an expanded, historical interpretation with specific implications. This is an area where it can be shown that progress has been made.

Long ago, back when I was trying to make the Wikipedia Voynich Manuscript page better, I tried - and failed - to move all Voynich theories out to a separate page entirely.

That alone would be a vast improvement, but I don't think anyone wants it.

(16-12-2021, 11:46 PM)nickpelling Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Long ago, back when I was trying to make the Wikipedia Voynich Manuscript page better, I tried - and failed - to move all Voynich theories out to a separate page entirely.

That alone would be a vast improvement, but I don't think anyone wants it.

I think it's a good idea, but it's unlikely to be enforced. You have to find a lot of supporters for something like this on the discussion page of Wikipedia.

I don´t understand why everyone here defames Mr. Cheshire.
Did anyone of you had read Bowers&Lindemanns publication? Together with the fact, that since more than 100 years now, no one was able to find the right key to the VM, we all should know, that the voynich was not written in one plain language, that is known today.
So what can you do now?
Finding similar words in other descending language.

This is what Mr. Cheshire as well as Ahmet Ardic are doing. Mr. Ardic tries to find Turkic, Cheshire Latin/Roman/whatever.

This is the only thing, we can do.
I´m not convinced, that one day someone will find that one key to decipher the manuscript.

No one knows if the text is written in an artificial language, or a strange, forgotten dialect. Or, at least complete nonsense, how f.e. Torsten Timm in the "how the Voynich Manuscript was create"-article wrote.

We don't criticize Cheshire for trying to find a linguistic solution to the VM per se. Rather we criticize his methodology, argumentation, grasp of basic linguistics and integrity as a researcher, which are all deeply flawed.

"Defames"?

Here is a new paper from Cheshire. I did not want to open a new thread.

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