The Voynich Ninja

Hi guys,

My first thread on voynich ninja.
I am a software developer with mathematics background, and i would like to contribute to the voynich project with my programmin/statistical skills.

Really happy to be here on this ninja forum, but it is kinda overwhelming. There is just too much to jump into it random. What i would like is more of a guide where to begin on this forum. I downloaded some scripts from stolfi's website, but most of it is more than 20 years old. I hope there has been more statistics progress in the time since.

Q1:
Is there an interlinear file (fsg) that also contains which scribe wrote each section?

Q2:
Some research seems more useful than others, but this forum seems really individualistic? Is somebody continuing on the work of stephen bax or the CLS system?

Q3:
If it is not there and hasnt been tried, i would like to propose to do some weekly or monthly video conference chatting, brainstorming.

I am enjoying how much you guys have already done, and how supportive some of the community members are. 

Kind regards,
Davidd.

Q4:
Is there some kind of guide for beginners, new members, where to start reading if you want to get up to speed.

Really enjoying Koen's video's, they help a lot

(24-04-2025, 09:43 AM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi guys,

My first thread on voynich ninja.
I am a software developer with mathematics background, and i would like to contribute to the voynich project with my programmin/statistical skills.


Really happy to be here on this ninja forum, but it is kinda overwhelming. There is just too much to jump into it random. What i would like is more of a guide where to begin on this forum. I downloaded some scripts from stolfi's website, but most of it is more than 20 years old. I hope there has been more statistics progress in the time since.

Hi and welcome!

Maybe other people will provide links to various resources, but in case they don't, it should be possible to find the information in relevant topics. Normally there is a thread "Where to start with Voynich research" about once every 2-3 months here. For example, there are these threads:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
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(24-04-2025, 09:43 AM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Q1:
Is there an interlinear file (fsg) that also contains which scribe wrote each section?

I'm not sure there is a universally accepted list of scribes. ZL transliteration files have Currier's language tag for each folio.

(24-04-2025, 09:43 AM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Q2:
Some research seems more useful than others, but this forum seems really individualistic? Is somebody continuing on the work of stephen bax or the CLS system?

It is individualistic, but also there is a lot of collaboration. A number of people are working on CLS-related projects, these are easy to look up. As for Stephen Bax,
I really appreciate the contribution of Stephen Bax to making the Voynich manuscript more popular, but I'm not sure his approach has shown any promising results to warrant further investigation. Just my opinion.

Overall, I agree with you that it takes some time to get up to speed with the information regarding the Voynich manuscript, but I'm not sure there is a shortcut. This is the nature of the topic, I guess.

There is a lot to learn about the Voynich MS and its research, so you should expect that this will take quite a bit of time.

With respect to the scribal hands, all main transliteration files that are linked at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. have this information encoded in the start record for each page.

(24-04-2025, 11:41 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.There is a lot to learn about the Voynich MS and its research, so you should expect that this will take quite a bit of time.

With respect to the scribal hands, all main transliteration files that are linked at the bottom of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. have this information encoded in the start record for each page.

Thanks Rene,

Are you aware that stolfi's FSG link gives a forbidden? You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Will use You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for my research.

(24-04-2025, 11:51 AM)davidd Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Are you aware that stolfi's FSG link gives a forbidden?

Ah yes, I had fixed most of these links, but apparently overlooked the ones on this page.
Will fix ASAP.

The format of the file you are intending to use has a documented format (IVTFF v. 2.0), the definition of which you should be able to find when reading on, plus a tool that can do most of the pre-processing that you would need (ivtt - You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.).

Shamelessy plugging this thread   -->  Are you a computer scientist who wants to crack the Voynich ?  -->You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Though it sounds like you are familiar with most of these issues.

We definitely should have a suggested reading and  rundown of the biggest issues   discussion + curated thread

Hi Davidd, welcome to the forum!

I completely understand what you are saying. The thing with a forum is that it is by definition "ad hoc" driven. It's basically a long archive of conversations that were had for whatever reason. A lot of what is said in those conversations is valuable and interesting, but due to the dynamic nature of the medium, this often gets buried. Unless someone remembers a particular thread at the right moment, or someone successfully uses the limited search function (which presupposes knowing the exact term that was used in advance).

This could be remedied by making a curated thread of "useful topics" or something, but this has not yet been undertaken. It should be though.

Rene's website You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the closest we have to something like this. But it is also quite sprawling, and naturally focuses a lot on the areas Rene is most into.

Regarding collaboration vs. individualism, Voynich research as a whole is extremely individualistic. Several people complain about this, but it's kind of what you get when the field consists for 99% of amateur researchers who do this in their spare time. Specific to Voynich research is that many people who want to solve the MS are actually writing their own fiction. It often happens that theorists seek help and collaborators, but this just never happens. Nobody wants to participate in someone else's delusion.

The example of Stephen Bax you mention is a bit different in the sense that he had a more professional and reasoned approach to the MS, and many people took his research seriously at the time. Nowadays, the "meta" has really shifted far away from substitution ciphers though, and you won't find many people who find Bax's research worth pursuing further.

That said, I do believe we have a great community here and sometimes collaboration works really well. The caveat is, in my experience, that you have to be very concrete. If you present the forum with an actual problem you're facing in your research, they are very likely to want to help. There are also many examples of a couple of people working together for example to write a paper.

Bigger collaborative projects entirely on the forum are possible, but the challenge there is that you'd need to:

• Find a question that needs an answer
  
• Have enough people who are interested in that particular topic
  
• Create a framework for cooperation
  
• Preferably have some kind of stated goal to work towards
  

I think the Voynich is just an incredibly tough nut to crack. In my opinion, the most satisfying projects, whether collaborative or not, are those that leave you feeling like you contributed something to the study in general rather than advancing any one theory.

(24-04-2025, 04:42 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Davidd, welcome to the forum!

I completely understand what you are saying. The thing with a forum is that it is by definition "ad hoc" driven. It's basically a long archive of conversations that were had for whatever reason. A lot of what is said in those conversations is valuable and interesting, but due to the dynamic nature of the medium, this often gets buried. Unless someone remembers a particular thread at the right moment, or someone successfully uses the limited search function (which presupposes knowing the exact term that was used in advance).

This could be remedied by making a curated thread of "useful topics" or something, but this has not yet been undertaken. It should be though.

Rene's website You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the closest we have to something like this. But it is also quite sprawling, and naturally focuses a lot on the areas Rene is most into.

Regarding collaboration vs. individualism, Voynich research as a whole is extremely individualistic. Several people complain about this, but it's kind of what you get when the field consists for 99% of amateur researchers who do this in their spare time. Specific to Voynich research is that many people who want to solve the MS are actually writing their own fiction. It often happens that theorists seek help and collaborators, but this just never happens. Nobody wants to participate in someone else's delusion.

The example of Stephen Bax you mention is a bit different in the sense that he had a more professional and reasoned approach to the MS, and many people took his research seriously at the time. Nowadays, the "meta" has really shifted far away from substitution ciphers though, and you won't find many people who find Bax's research worth pursuing further.

That said, I do believe we have a great community here and sometimes collaboration works really well. The caveat is, in my experience, that you have to be very concrete. If you present the forum with an actual problem you're facing in your research, they are very likely to want to help. There are also many examples of a couple of people working together for example to write a paper.

Bigger collaborative projects entirely on the forum are possible, but the challenge there is that you'd need to:

• Find a question that needs an answer
  
• Have enough people who are interested in that particular topic
  
• Create a framework for cooperation
  
• Preferably have some kind of stated goal to work towards
  

I think the Voynich is just an incredibly tough nut to crack. In my opinion, the most satisfying projects, whether collaborative or not, are those that leave you feeling like you contributed something to the study in general rather than advancing any one theory.

Hi Koen, thanks for your reply.

some thoughts i had on improving some of these points you mention:

structure:

• 1. start a wiki where people can add information
  
• 2. add tags to forum threads, some of them could be automated like give me all threads on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
• 3. slightly risky for bullying behaviour, but let people give a score or some upvote/downvote mechanism. The thank you system could perhaps be used for something like this
  

I see some people talking about "i added two italian solutions to my list". Apparently multiple people have collections, lists. 

voynichese.com and voynich.nu are very good resources, and it seems many people have their own blogs. some introductory thread with a bunch of links could go a long way.

some resources i havent found yet:
a zip file with all images. maybe this has copyright issues?
Software that reasearchers use. Lisa mentioned something in one of her beinecke voynich videos she used during her scribe paleography research, and i havent found where i can get the bitrans software mentioned by Rene. Probably a lot of other software i have yet to discover the existence of.

And for collaboration, I suggest recurring video meetings, i understood there were 100s of people attending online last voynich day. Could potentially be highjacked by people with solveritis, but could also be valuable in making it less individualistic and more collaborative

Do we have a jitsi or zoom where we could organise a "more casual get together" on a more frequent basis?