[split] About knowing the history of Voynich research

[Koen G]

[EDIT: this post started a tangent in the previous thread about being able to discern where old ideas are coming from etc, I thought I'd better split it into its own thread]

Marco's image reminds me of Brian Cham's curve-line system. I'm not entirely on board with his system per se, but the underlying observations are valuable.

[-JKP-]

I don't completely agree with Brian Cham's observations, but I do agree with parts of them.

[ReneZ]

The curve-line system was already being discussed more than 20 years ago. It remains odd to me to see it being called Brian Cham's.

[-JKP-]

Rene, I've only seen Cham's paper (and only recently). I don't want to bother you with hunting up a link, but was it called curve-line in earlier discussions? Can I find it that way?

[Koen G]

Yeah I'm also only familiar with Cham's work. But in that case, what I like is the underlying (and apparently older) thought of curves and lines, not the direction he took it.

[ReneZ]

I don't think that it had a particular name at the time, and it is quite long ago.
No criticism was implied from my side, in any case.

[RenegadeHealer]

I'd also credit Brian Cham's blog with introducing me to the Curve-Line System. If there's someone who came up with this concept in an inchoate form before Brian (F.P. Currier?), I'm too much of a noob to know. Brian is a member of this forum, though he doesn't post much; I'd be interested to hear him talk about his influences for this system. I'll have a look at the references on his blog, too.

Can I just take a moment to point out an elephant in the room. There's a strange sort of tension in this community around the issue of references and credit for ideas. It's a bit of an article of faith in the VMS community that there are no new ideas, just an amnesiac rehash of old forgotten ones, as turnover of members progresses. Fairly frequently I see it happen that someone presents an idea or an observation in their own words and without references, and someone will reply pointing out that this idea is not original, and that credit is due to the originator of the idea. The original poster will usually reply that he was unaware of such precedent, and is glad to hear about it, as he wants to learn more, and it was not his intention to plagiarize. Sometimes this exchange is a bit less kind, depending on the participants involved.

The point being, there is very real status in this community attached to knowing the history of VMS-related discussion very well, and being able to quote it chapter and verse. If you can recall off the cuff what Jim Reed posted on the mailing list in 1995, and can tell a noobie that he better get knee deep in the mailing list archives before contributing, you're original gangster. Which is how academic disciplines work. I get it. When I studied surgery, the older surgeons could quote all the classic watershed surgery papers chapter and verse, and didn't want any young upstarts opening their mouths who couldn't. But the difference is, I knew what I was getting into, and what I signed up for. This kind of culture of seniority is not necessarily what newcomers are expecting here. I think this sort of tension over the originality of an idea and the need to credit it is potentially a real turnoff to new contributors, who might indeed have something valuable to contribute. Two solutions I'd propose to this problem:

1. Compile a required reading list that all new registrants to this forum must read, and sign off on having read, before registering an account.
   
2. Encourage kindness toward members who present unoriginal ideas as though they were original. This starts with giving someone the benefit of the doubt when he claims that he came up with the idea independently. Give him a link to older discussions of the same topic, sure. But being preemptively dismissive or shaming of someone who "should have known" that the idea he's presenting is not originally his, isn't helpful.
   

Which leads me to another elephant in the room: I also get that a lot of the "original gangsters" here are jaded. I sense that some are tired that they've poured so many years of efforts into this book, and have so little to show for it. And I get that the enthusiasm of noobies, particularly ones who haven't done their homework and don't realize they're talking to someone who has been studying the VMS since before they were born, is probably annoying. But I question whether our collective goal of unraveling the VMS is well served by holding everyone to rigorous standards of idea-sourcing.

[-JKP-]

I'm not sure if we have a thread on this, RenegadeH, but based on what you said, it might be worthwhile to compile a very basic (and not overwhelming) reading list of the most informative and helpful basic articles in VMS history. Maybe it could be made a "sticky" post so it always sits at the top, perhaps at the top of the thread where new users introduce themselves (or somewhere where it has a good chance of being seen).


I honestly don't know what the best resources are, I'm addicted to manuscripts, so that's where I spend most of my time, and I wasn't on the old mailing list (I still have to find time to read up on it), and I haven't read very much of Currier and not all of d'Imperio, but I would like to nominate d'Imperio, Currier, and Rene's site to be on that shortlist.

[Koen G]

I'm of the opinion that remembering everything is impossible. Heck, sometimes I even enthusiastically discover something, then search on the forum whether it has been discussed before, and then find out that none other than myself wrote a detailed analysis of this very thing last year 

(One of the reasons why I am still somewhat maintaining my blog is that working on a blog post helps me remember things much better).

As long as it is done in a friendly manner, I think pointing out precedents can be helpful and must be done when appropriate. But most people really aren't conscious plagiarists so the underlying message should always be:
"Here's a link to where this was discussed before" rather than
"You stole this from x or y"

In this way, people with a robust mental archive can help those who are newer or have bad memories (I consider myself both). 

For the record, I experienced Rene's comment as a friendly pointer. Since I started the reference to Cham's work myself, it is good that he set the record straight.

[ReneZ]

I have no fundamental problem with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., but its wording is a little bit suggestive of things that may not be there. Let me pick out a few phrases.

There's a strange sort of tension in this community around the issue of references and credit for ideas.

Unfortunately, that is true.

It's a bit of an article of faith in the VMS community that there are no new ideas

I hope not... I see new ideas eing presented here all the time. But yes, many people see things that other people have seen before. That is entirely to be expected.

Fairly frequently I see it happen that someone presents an idea or an observation in their own words and without references, and someone will reply pointing out that this idea is not original,...

Yes...

and that credit is due to the originator of the idea

No!!
Why?
For me, that second bit is part of the tension that was mentioned at the top, and it is not at all necessary.

Lots deleted....

This kind of culture of seniority is not necessarily what newcomers are expecting here.

???
Sounds to me like going a bit overboard here.