(19-05-2025, 01:39 PM)Ruby Novacna Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd like to understand the authors' reasons for sending you their theories, instead of posting them on the forum. Aren't they aware of your attitude towards "solvers"?
Probably has to do with visibility. I'm sure Rene and Lisa have been getting emails like these for much longer.
Also, most solvers probably agree with me on the fact that all the other solutions are wrong
(19-05-2025, 01:55 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Also, most solvers probably agree with me on the fact that all the other solutions are wrong
You're right, I'm no different, but I do enjoy reading other people's theories, hoping to find a little grain of salt that I might be missing.
(19-05-2025, 12:46 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The recent rate of new proposed solutions (off-list and on-list) is now more than one per week (!)
... and still increasing
I got three this week, twelve this month. I've received at least fifty in the last two years, with many more before that. They tend to start with "I promise I'm not one of those crazed obsessives..." and end with "I would really like your opinion of my work." Except they don't really want my opinion of their work. When I have taken the time to review their work and respond, the author nearly always responds to my suggestions with anger and defensiveness, not with a mind open to constructive criticism. So I don't respond anymore. The point of peer review, whether in private correspondence or double-blind for a journal, is to receive constructive feedback that will improve your work.
(21-05-2025, 05:58 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[..] not with a mind open to constructive criticism. So I don't respond anymore.[..]
...and by this, all "solvers" can and will be sure now that you also don't even read their solutions anymore.
Quite a way to reduce workload.
That would be ok for me, it was never said that you or others should be referees for incoming proposals.
Like moths drawn to a candle flame, some solvers are attracted by the aura of a few names. By definition, they aren't seeking improvement; they're offering their theories as sacrifices on a burning altar. Otherwise, they'd post their findings on a forum where differing opinions can be found, or, if they have storytelling skills, publish books.
(17-04-2025, 12:59 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.VMS is a written Bermuda triangle of unknown letters in unknown words of an unknown language.
Without knowing at least one of them, no one will get the other two.
For a while now I've thought of Michael Coe's "Five Pillars of Decipherment" as a useful lens to examine why the Voynich text remains unsolved (You are not allowed to view links.
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(21-05-2025, 06:55 PM)Stefan Wirtz_2 Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....and by this, all "solvers" can and will be sure now that you also don't even read their solutions anymore.
Actually no!
Lisa just wrote this on the Ninja Forum. The vast majority of people coming up with solutions, which they are offering to a select audience by E-mail, have never read a word in any forum or discussion group, so they are not aware of this.
They will just keep coming.
Let me answer from the side of solution finders.
When Champollion deciphered the Rosetta Stone, he was working outside the mainstream Egyptology.
Heinrich Schliemann, who famously discovered Troy- was an amateur archaeologist.
They both were mocked by the official science then, until they had enormous success in their work and achieved the goal, unachieved by the brightest wits then.
Like Schliemann Voynich solvers are often dismissed as cranks. Scientists complain over many "crank" theories, but offer no clear way to separate signal from noise.
Academics fear chaos, when they engage amateurs, but let us define what "good" looks like.
For example - launch a "Voynich challenge platform" and pose specific questions, like: Decipher this foil contents.
Does the proposed solution match the manuscript patterns.
Can on other sections the method be applied and results replicated, etc.
Then no one will be offended because will understand that his/her theory does not really work.
BR: Vessy
(21-05-2025, 05:58 PM)LisaFaginDavis Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I got three this week, twelve this month. I've received at least fifty in the last two years, with many more before that. [..]
By the way: is that the reason why digitalized VMS ( You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. ) does not come with the useful page browser and all download options anymore?
It is quite un-nice to walk to whole script each time and make bad screenshots.