I've received a lot of great feedback on You are not allowed to view links.
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So I would like to propose a short-term project:
A
Voynich Plants Historical Research Task Force ...
if there are sufficient volunteers willing to take part.
The Motivation
While TVG is ostensibly an application to generate input from a broad audience, I've been told that it is also providing a very useful platform in active research by presenting all of the plant illustrations from the manuscript in one easy-to-browse location and by providing a summary of the many plant identification proposals from published research.
It is NOT meant, and cannot reasonably become, a one-stop comprehensive source of collaborative research and analysis of the botanical content of the manuscript, let alone for the cross-disciplinary features beyond the plant illustrations. However, it can go a bit further than it currently is in being a useful resource for active researchers.
- The current entries from 'historical researchers' cover most of those proposals that have been published previously, but it is not complete. There are a couple of notable sources that are not yet included, and most of the current ones are very brief in detail, lack pictures, and have indirect references. And we suspect, they probably include a few erroneous entries.
- There are a couple of additional features (described later) that could be added to the application which would make it even more useful for researchers.
The effort for implementing the additional features is not tremendous, but it is the extending and refining of the data regarding the historical research proposals that would justify adding them.
What's Proposed
If there are a few volunteers from this forum (or who are otherwise qualified) who are willing to collaborate on the effort of that data collection, then I can commit resources to provide support as follows:
1. We will first extend the application with these features (perhaps others after discussion):
- The ability to designate with each proposal, the part of the plant that is being recognized for similarity. This would include Whole Plant, Flower, Leaves, Root, etc.
- The ability to journal commentary, pictures, and reference links on each whole plant illustration (not just on each proposal).
- The ability to search the content of comments across all plants and proposals.
2. I will provide the means to enable the group to easily enter data into the application as any one of the historical researchers and to collaborate on this activity
3. I can also set up a means for the group to exchange private communications and collaborate during the course of the task force.
I don't think this would be an onerous effort if handled by a small group at their leisure, and it should not take too long to complete the overall effort. (A few hours by each individual would probably collectively produce the minimum needed to substantially complete the task.)
Additional Comments
- We would need at least 3 or 4 people to volunteer before commencing. This will help ensure the success of the mission and justify the effort it will require for us to first implement the additional features mentioned. I think we need at least 3 people in order to enable sufficient collaboration and 'cross-oversight' of the activity and to just reduce the overall burden.
- We would of course provide, in the application, credit to the Task Force and list its members.
- It would be beneficial if the group also composed an additional resources page to provide information and links to other resources on various related topics (e.g. the many good Voynich websites and blogs, resources on the field of botany and how to identify plants, etc.). We could then add this as its own static page in the application. (The current About page has a bit of this information, but it is getting a bit too big to do justice to the Additional Resources section.)
- If ambitious, the group could also extend The Voynich Garden data to include the many partial-plant illustrations as well. These number more than the whole-plant illustrations currently included in the application. (If that commitment were made, I could also provide the necessary tools to clip out and prepare the additional images.)
- The previous points notwithstanding, it is important to keep the scope of The Voynich Garden application well-defined. It is tempting to keep extending it with more and more information and features, but we need to guard against it spreading out beyond the botanical illustrations. This would be a prohibitive and unnecessary goal. We are all aware that researching and analyzing the Voynich Manuscript involves several specialized areas and skill sets, and the plant illustrations are just one contributory feature. And there are many excellent resources available on many topics surrounding the manuscript and its different aspects. Too much overlap with those other resources is not helpful. The Voynich Garden can be most valuable if it stays focused on providing a single location to collect and present information specific to the botanical illustrations and the analysis of what they may represent. Making use of that information in broader efforts to analyze and understand the manuscript needs to be left to researchers using a variety of resources beyond just The Voynich Garden.
If you are interested, please PM or email me (curator@cryptobotany.org).
As I mentioned, if (but only if) there is sufficient interest and volunteers, then we can launch this task force.
Thank you all,
Andrew