(25-04-2016, 04:36 AM)Koen Gh. wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.JKP - I agree that tossing out an idea does not create a precedent, but it's a thin line. Sometimes the only thing we can do to demonstrate an idea is provide suitable images for comparison.
I mean, if knowing whether or not something is correct defines precedent, there's not much of it in Voynich studies.
You can spend months chasing an idea, without much to show for at the end of the ride. Maybe all you can say is: I think x is y, but I haven't found any images or quotes to support it, so it remains unsupported until someone does find them...
There's nothing wrong with tossing out ideas. I am a big supporter of brainstorming and would be the last to discourage that. And... I know about following trails that may never pan out (I've been working on a slim one for years)... but that's not quite my point...
If Researcher A tosses out some idea in 2013 and Researcher B follows a similar trail in 2014 (with or without the knowledge of researcher A's comment) and Researcher B follows up, finds support for the idea, and documents it, who deserves the citation? Researcher A may only have been guessing. If you offer enough guesses, some will pan out by sheer chance and I've seen people in the academic world try to claim credit for something they guessed or even joked about but did nothing to actually research.