The Voynich Ninja

Not sure of a definition. Maybe something is a solution if:
1. It offers an explanation for the text and
2. The author appears to believe in it (rather than just testing something)

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(30-04-2025, 08:34 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I am not aware that any 'Voynich solution proposer' has ever been successfully dissuaded from going ahead and showing it.
This may therefore be more of a theoretical discussion.

In a way, becoming more aware of what solutions are typically like may also assist us in the next crisis of Cheshirian proportions. I've also referenced Tavi's list in several of my videos. If the solvers are beyond salvation, at least others may still benefit.

Two things keep being conflated here - discouraging people from becoming solvers in the first place, and discouraging people from publicizing their solution after they have become a solver.   

The first may sometimes be successful, and likely thanks to Koen's videos which are reaching a wide range of people. The second is seldom successful, and I would probably say virtually never successful if read as trying to persuade solvers they are wrong and should drop their solution.  On the solutions list, to the best of my knowledge only one or two people have dropped their solution...but they replaced it with another they now believed absolutely couldn't be a coincidence.   

As to the first, if they may provide helpful insights, then wouldn't they provide much more if they were not prisoners of this powerful confirmation bias?  Experience of solvers shows that Voynich solutions are a dead end.  The odds of any solution being correct are extremely slim, and once a person is wedded to it, their sole goal becomes defending it and persuading others.  They've effectively given up on finding the true solution or getting any closer to it, even if they will never know this.  

Irrespective of the utility provided, if we can intervene before a person wastes their time and hopes on a wrong solution and puts their real name on a solution in public, that seems to me to be a good thing.  Cheshire's academic credibility has taken a nose dive even if he does not quite perceive it that way.  And we've had a couple of solvers recently believing that their solution will be financially life-changing for them.  

(30-04-2025, 08:57 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  The solutions cover a lot of ground , are there any specific criteria , that are needed  for a concept to become a solution ?

Not many. I'd say:

1. There has to be a thread on the forum for the solution's discussion. 
   
2. There has to be enough information about the solution for it to be discussed.  Otherwise, I can only add it to the secondary list where we're not sure what the language/system is.  So this presumes the solver has identified the language and translated at least a few words. 
   
3. Certainty.  The person has to believe they have deciphered it.  For example, I wouldn't include dfs346's work mapping Voynichese to various plaintext languages because they are just experiments:  he doesn't think he's cracked it with any of them.   
   

(30-04-2025, 09:19 PM)tavie Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The first may sometimes be successful, and likely thanks to Koen's videos which are reaching a wide range of people.

It would be great, but in the past, people have kept coming from nowhere with their solutions.
I do applaud the effort, and will soon add my own small contribution to it.

(30-04-2025, 08:57 PM)RobGea Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The solutions cover a lot of ground , are there any specific criteria , that are needed  for a concept to become a solution ?

I think there is a bit of a terminology problem here, similarly to the term 'cipher' which may be interpreted by different people in different ways.

At the very top has to be 'the accepted solution', just like the ones for Linear B and the more recent You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
This is always obviously correct. It presents the translation.
We do not have it yet.

I do not think that any of the items on Tavi's list presents a translation of any significant part of the text, but I did not check at all.
A few past solution proposals did include translation of a very singificant amount of the text, foremost probably John Stojko's, but since the vast majority of people here will not have heard of it, it is also obviously not the accepted solution.

I just want to see someone coming with a translation like (for example):
'Here begins the book of master Ulrich ...'
Then we are talking.

Of course it is possible to discuss interesting discoveries (there have been few) that are not solutions.

Most of the proposed solutions are not solutions at all. They can be hypotheses, or tentative solution approaches.
A good example is the recent proposed solution where a paper was announced, and the post said that four pages were translated, but help is needed for the rest.
If you have the real solution, you can translate the text. If you are convinced that you are right, you will do it.
Saying that you do not want to continue after four pages is like an admission of defeat.
I have seen several cases like this, and in some cases the solver was looking for funding to do the remainder. Then it becomes even more suspicious....

In case a propsoed solution includes that the text is not meaningful, it becomes much more difficult, and a proof seems virtually impossible.

I think it is not helpful to set the bar too low.
Clearly, all entries on Tavi's list fail to meet any criterium to qualify as 'the solution'.

If i can do a feature request for Tavie's overview of solutions. Could you add for each solution how they translate daiin

(11-05-2025, 05:58 PM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If i can do a feature request for Tavie's overview of solutions. Could you add for each solution how they translate daiin

Just to get a feel for what you're asking here, you should test how long it takes to find just 5 of them that actually show you how to translate daiin.

(11-05-2025, 08:08 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(11-05-2025, 05:58 PM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.If i can do a feature request for Tavie's overview of solutions. Could you add for each solution how they translate daiin

Just to get a feel for what you're asking here, you should test how long it takes to find just 5 of them that actually show you how to translate daiin.

I get what you are saying, but still
Challenge accepted.
It is a question that is very commonly asked by the regulars when someone presents a solution here.

(11-05-2025, 08:12 PM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Challenge accepted.

Do I read it right that you are volunteering to go through all the solutions and create a daiin chart?

• Arabic (with Hebrew and Syriac) by Mike P.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
  
• translation of daiin as "religion/faith"
  

• Basque by Gavin G.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
  
• You cut open water lilies, as soon as red leaves are annoying leaf and flower there.
   lilies/leaves
  

• "Cisalpine Celtic" (with Lepontic Syntax" ?! or Medieval Irish?) by Doireann.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
  
• and she thinks that the most frequent word, the "8am", means "adhoil", which also isnt in any irish dictionary.
  

• English (Middle) by Geoffrey C.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  
• [daiin] = "so"
  

• English (Middle) by Stellar.  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
  
  
• continuously
  

From the top 11 on tavie's list, i could find these 5

(11-05-2025, 08:24 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(11-05-2025, 08:12 PM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Challenge accepted.

Do I read it right that you are volunteering to go through all the solutions and create a daiin chart?

It will not always be possible to find it, i am not gonna pay money to some crank

I propose we make a self test question list for solvers that includes the question what daiin means