The Voynich Ninja

Diane, please stop adding accusations to every single post. This is counterproductive and ends up damaging everybody: Rene, the community and most of all yourself.

Plagiarism exists in the academic world, which is why I am of the opinion that serious cases of plagiarism should be allowed to be discussed on the forum. 

But if those reports of plagiarism are unfounded or not supported by evidence, they are problematic.

If the reported plagiarism did not happen, or is based on misunderstanding or exaggeration, then the accusation is a form of defamation.
If the plagiarism did happen, but you report it without evidence, it is easy for the plagiarist to put you aside as a liar.

If you think somebody stole from your intellectual property, feel free to start a thread about that, but provide proof. "By the way" accusations without evidence will no longer be tolerated on the forum.

As end-note to this post.

First, investigation of Fr. Beckx' movements led me to a different conclusion than that which - until then - had been found in every Voynich-related site, including Voynich.nu which until then had strongly asserted and/or implied that Beckx had gone to Austria and therefore that the Vms had been among works obtained ultimately from that source.

Those assertions are no longer included on voynich.nu

No suggestion had been earlier made that the manuscripts which Voynich purchased had only come into Beckx' possession in Fiesole.

This suggestion is now to be seen at voynich.nu, though explained in a different manner.

One is grateful to Rene for making the phone calls or organising the conversations which confirmed that probability that Beckx' did not leave Rome with the Vms.

Once again, however, I would point out that this avenue was one opened by my own researches, hinted at only in two posts of March 2015 (before those conversations/phone calls) and that while Ellie Velinska is credited with having provided most of the information, there is no explanation of how, or why, such an idea occurred either to the owner of the blog, nor to th person named.

The end-result of the way in which the matter was pursued is that an important essay is unlikely to be included by my publisher - not because the research is unsound but because the line of argument was co-opted and published on a page whose date for these additions is so ambiguous that .. for perhaps the fifteenth or sixteenth time as the work has been prepared for publication -  the issue of priority (and thus of rights) has been obscured.

The Libri connection is not in the least 'hypothetical' though in the hopes of avoiding such pre-emption (yet again) I led into it obliquely and expressed it in the same way online.  The upshot is that while that essay offers new and valuable data which clarifies much about the issue of origin and transmission for the manuscript, the essay in question... and indeed the whole project.. may be cast into doubt.  I take this possibility and consequent loss to the study seriously and can only regret others seem unable to consider the issues as matters of common principle not arbitrary preference.

And that, I think, is my last word on this subject or any other in this forum, one which - as I'll admit - I agreed to serve as co-founder on certain conditions which I felt essential if discussion was not to be constantly re-railed into the 'voynich.nu' track.

(28-12-2017, 04:11 AM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....

The end-result of the way in which the matter was pursued is that an important essay is unlikely to be included by my publisher - not because the research is unsound but because the line of argument was co-opted and published on a page whose date for these additions is so ambiguous that .. for perhaps the fifteenth or sixteenth time as the work has been prepared for publication -  the issue of priority (and thus of rights) has been obscured.

...

You have a number of pages on your own site listed as "reworked" and also as "updated" with no indication of what was changed or when they were changed.

I'm not saying this is right or wrong because it partly depends on the format of the site, but to criticize amendations on one site when there is a pattern of undated/unspecified amendations on your own is... well...

I thought this was going to stop....

Let's see. Maybe this will help to put at least the innocent by-standers in the picture.

Most of the essentials of the role of Beckx, and the meaning of his private library had been clarified in the time frame 1998 - 2003, that is: *years* before Diane O'Donovan had even heard of the Voynich MS.

The idea that he personally owned it, or even had anything to do with this MS is a misconception.
Beckx was exclusively a priest. He was no Kircher, with an interest in books and science.

There are just stickers with his name that have been added to many manuscripts.

It was when Xavier Ceccaldi, in the old mailing list, published a letter by the Jesuit Paul Pierling, that it became completely clear what had happened, and what was precisely the meaning of the 'private library' of Beckx.
This was a ruse by the Jesuits.
I have preserved the relevant page of Xavier (dated 2003) here:

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The fact that this was nothing else than a ruse was confirmed to me personally by the staff of the historical archives of the Gregorian University in Rome (the successor of the Collegium Romanum).


Now, let us be a little bit serious.

I have researched the circumstances of Voynich's acquisition of the MS, from the time it was received by Kircher and passed through Jesuit hands, from 1998 to 2015 (17 years). The most important printed sources I used are listed at the bottom of this page:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
The text on that page is a highly condensed historical background for this part of the history of the MS.

Beside these printed sources, I have greatly benefited from archive material from several places, and from visiting libraries and talking with their staff.
*That* is how historical research is done.

The suggestion that I would have stolen this information from a 2015 blog post is a defamation, and it is preposterous.
And don't anyone tell me that this wording is not in line with forum rules.

Oh good lord, not this again.
Can we please not have any more spurious and unspecific allegations levied against other websites via this forum. Go and complain to the authors in person, and let the rest of us to get on quietly. I direct your attention to what Koen so elegantly put above in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Thread locked.