For me, the forum is exclusively a place to discuss, not a place to store information.
It is bad enough that the extraordinarily rich amount of information contained in this site is unorganised and irretrievable. (No criticism to anyone: it was never meant to be).
I am surely not the only one who remembers to have read something here some time ago, but was unable to find it back using the search function. (Yes, sometimes I did succeed).
As another bite of food for thought: there are really two types of solutions.
One type is a proposed translation.
The other type is "what the manuscript represents" without any attempt to translate any part of it.
The latter was probably not intended to be addressed by this thread, but there seem to be equally many of them.
* Modern fake by Wilfrid V.
* Depiction of ensoulment
* The travels of a relative of the Barbavaras
* The thing that @moonchild was proposing (don't know how to describe it)
* Others
It seems this site is not the only place that gets "I have solved it " posts.
Nils Kopal from the Cryptool project also gets asked similar stuff and made a helpful video.
Basics of Cryptology – Part 19 (Cryptanalysis – Unicity Distance & Check and Proof Cipher Solutions)
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At 08:00 Mr.Kopal intoduces a 4 point checklist and briefly mentions the VMS.
Section 3.2 How to check and proof that a solution to a Ciphertext is the right one: [08:00m - 15:00m.]
"I created a solution ciphertext..is this the right one"
Where he explains what to do and how to check if your solution to a ciphertext is possibly the correct one.
VMS mentioned at 0:47s, 08m:00 and again at 14m:36s.
(02-04-2024, 12:57 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As another bite of food for thought: there are really two types of solutions.
One type is a proposed translation.
The other type is "what the manuscript represents" without any attempt to translate any part of it.
The latter was probably not intended to be addressed by this thread, but there seem to be equally many of them.
* Modern fake by Wilfrid V.
* Depiction of ensoulment
* The travels of a relative of the Barbavaras
* The thing that @moonchild was proposing (don't know how to describe it)
* Others
I made number two on the list! I am honored!
As for Moonchild, I believe she is seeking magic. She is not alone. We live in a world with oceans of misinformation. Just go to YouTube and do a Search on the words "Voynich Manuscript" and you will see all the click-bait stuff that is being pushed because people seek magic solutions to their problems.
If there could be some kind of united consensus on the meaning, even without a translation of the text, then maybe, just maybe, it would take some wind out of the sails of the click-baity-ness of the words "Voynich Manuscript" for people seeking woo-woo magic solutions.
(02-04-2024, 12:57 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.For me, the forum is exclusively a place to discuss, not a place to store information.
It is bad enough that the extraordinarily rich amount of information contained in this site is unorganised and irretrievable. (No criticism to anyone: it was never meant to be).
For a thread like this, a workaround would be to have it up as a curated thread in the You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. Those can always be found easily, and then the link to the relevant discussion thread is contained within.
Indeed, I was only thinking about text solutions, where we may see more recurring errors than in general solutions.
(01-04-2024, 08:49 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Might it be useful if we had a thread with all these points, so we could refer people to section 2.4 of the "So you solved the Voynich manuscript" thread?
Actually I think we've already had something of the sort, if that's not deja vu.
(02-04-2024, 12:57 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.* The travels of a relative of the Barbavaras
To clarify, to be precise, I think the whole Rosettes foldout is a map of a circular journey taken by Abbot Antonio Barbavara brother of Marcolino Barbavara and Francesco Barbavara from the Abbey of Saints Nazzaro and Celso in the Duchy of Milan to the Papal Council of Basel and back. I don't think the whole manuscript is about his travels. I suspect that some of the alpine plants he found on his journey are contained in the herbal section of the manuscript. I also suspect that the pages with a Germanic influence such as the astronomical pages of the Voynich were copied from or influenced by manuscripts the author saw in Basel, whilst there for the Council; as the author would have spent a significant amount of time in Basel.
I welcome suggestions as to errors I have made.
I would love to see people who have "solved" the VM rigorously test and prove it before they claim it. And by test and prove, I mean repeatable results achieved by multiple VM researchers not involved in coming up with the "solution".
Ideally, they would also first review related work previously completed.
Do they need their own forum or thread? Probably not. But it would be helpful to have the best threads of related work previously completed be easily accessible without relying on navigating the current forum structure or search field.
I still consider myself new to the VM and this site but when I was just getting started, I found the volume of information available (and repeated frequently, sometimes ad nauseum) to be incredibly daunting. I wish there had been a quick start guide of some sort: one or more pages (as opposed to discussion forums) to the effect of new to VM research or new to this site or have a theory or solution, start here. Pages where newcomers could acclimate quickly regardless of their main purpose for coming here. These pages could be as simple as organizing curated information and links to the most helpful original threads on each topic, whether that be various solution theories or an overview of the VM's history or guides on how to navigate this site, etc.
This site does have a You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. page and the link to it is in the top links of every page. Like the main page, it is broken out into sections with links to additional related pages for each. The bottom section is Voynich Ninja features, the description of which says "Tutorials and guides to help you get the most out of the Voynich Ninja". But the only page links there currently are for the Blogosphere reader and the Image extractor. Pages like the ones I suggested above could be added and then linked in this Help section or particularly useful threads, whether curated or not, for getting started could be linked in this Help section.
I am all for open discussion on any and all aspects of VM research. But I think we could all do without as much of the tripping all over each other all the time that we tend to do a lot. And certainly when we have really helpful information available, it would be really nice if it didn't get lost in the shuffle.
(03-04-2024, 03:52 PM)nablator Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (02-04-2024, 09:50 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Actually I think we've already had something of the sort, if that's not deja vu.
This thread? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Could have been that... But I have a strong recollection of Rene (?) composing a (sanity-)checklist for an arbitrary proposed solution. Could have been posted in some News thread dedicated to one of those solutions.
(03-04-2024, 07:36 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Could have been that... But I have a strong recollection of Rene (?) composing a (sanity-)checklist for an arbitrary proposed solution. Could have been posted in some News thread dedicated to one of those solutions.
Then it could be this post by ReneZ: You are not allowed to view links.
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Other threads with tests/criteria to evaluate theories:
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