Talk:Voynich Manuscript

Nominate for deletion. This page tells us SQUAT about what it is. (And this time, I solemnly swear to wait at least one day before vaporizing.) Researcher (talk) 05:30, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

See and external links leading therefrom.

The document is 'peculiar enough' to have an article - anyone care to develop. Jackiespeel (talk) 18:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, you need to provide at least a summary of why anyone should take time to follow those links, and which ones might be most fruitful. Just chucking up a sekrit stub that says "dig here" is not the way to spread the word. vaporise wait and see -- Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

'Library-terminal-logging-out-itis' (g).

Is the current revision an improvement? The manuscript has also been coopted into a number of novels etc. Jackiespeel (talk) 19:09, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * thanks! Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Better (enough so that I'll remove my deletion tag), but now how can we connect it to other parts of the wiki? How can we "de-lonely" it? Researcher (talk) 05:36, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

There is the Bacon connection.

'The odd thing is' that the VM has #not# been co-opted more than it has by the 'bizarre linkages crowd' - though it has a few mentions in some works of fiction. Jackiespeel (talk) 00:07, 29 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I still don't see why this exists. 20:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There are myths that anyone who tries to translate it will go nuts. 21:03, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Then maybe the article should say that, and provide links to the people who believe or promote such myths? 21:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I just heard that somewhere, is all. 21:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And it's back...seems like shameless self-promotion. -- Seth Peck (talk) 22:35, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If someone is willing write a page that doesn't read like a 15 year olds school essay, it can come back. Scarlet A.pngnarchist 00:06, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Twelve mainspace articles link here. Surely there's supposed to be something here.  01:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure a few of those are due to sidebar template caching. Тy YAUA 01:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * (EC) Actually only two or three. Those navigation templates really mess up "what links here" readings.  01:39, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Does my sig still look like that? (yes) 01:41, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Why delete the RationalWiki Voynich Manuscript page?
I recently found that my (skeptical, anti-pseudohistory, anti-pseudoscience) blog had been mentioned on the RationalWiki page on the Voynich Manuscript. I had a look at the page, tidied it up, and added some specific examples of pseudohistory to make it more relevant to the whole RationalWiki project. I then returned a couple of days' later to find that the whole article had been deleted by Armondikov, under the (completely false) presumption that I had put the link in it myself as self-promotion. Well, if that's the level of fact-checking and non-collaboration that passes for rigour here, no wonder pseudoscience and pseudohistory are in such ascendancy. Just so you know! :-( Nickpelling (talk) 18:23, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Because liberals.
 * -- Seth Peck (talk) 18:30, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You're right, the link wasn't added by you. Seems like a bit of a hasty deletion to me. I've undeleted it. -- 18:35, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It certainly needs work (formatting, etc). Paragraph three is extremely gushy. -- Seth Peck (talk) 18:40, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If you could add something to mission it up, it'd probably be more resistant to deletion attempts. The article says there are a bunch of theories surrounding the origin and contents. Some examples would help, especially if they're conspiracy theories. As it is, an article just stating that a manuscript exists and that people disagree on its origins is asking for a mission doubt template and eventual deletion. -- 18:45, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It's a cart-before-horse mess of an article. Instead of saying "here's a mysterious thing which some people have silly ideas about", it should say "here are some silly ideas about this mysterious thing," and then list the ideas rather than describe the thing, which is already described better elsewhere. Sophie  because liberals  20:16, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It'll take all of 3 seconds to restore if people want it. Scarlet A.pngsshole 20:44, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Moved this conversation from the Saloon Bar. 20:55, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Not to mention that Sophie's aforementioned horse is something of a one-trick pony at this point. -- Seth Peck (talk) 21:02, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

The article is incredibly empty of anything interesting, like things to refute. I lean strongly towards re-deletion at this time. If I were to edit it for clear content, virtually nothing would remain. As in, "The Voynich Manuscript in a vellum document which has been radiocarbon dated to the first half of the 15th century." And I'll be prone to do so, since I have to click "edit" now to fix the misspelled fourth word. 01:56, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. ArchieGoodwin (talk) 01:58, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Voynich Manuscript deserves its place on RationalWiki because...
...if RationalWiki is genuinely interested in "Documenting the full range of crank ideas", then the Voynich Manuscript should be top of its list. Yes, it is hard to write a non-crap article about the Voynich (you only have to look at the pig's ear Wikipedia contributors have made of their Voynich article) but that's kind of the point. A small number of data points aside, everything surrounding it is a mess of interpretation, fertile ground for both pseudoscience and pseudohistory to flourish in. Nickpelling (talk) 21:39, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
 * So why is that barely mentioned in the article? Instead we just get a bunch of names of people we haven't heard of, & a token couple of sentence saying there are theories about it but we're not going to bother exploring them.  21:47, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Reasons for keeping
CP does not have an article on the Manuscript. It makes more sense than CP. 171.33.222.26 (talk) 16:55, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Stephen Bax hypothesis
Would it be worthwhile to mention the hypothesis of Stephen Bax? --Damian Yerrick (talk) 13:18, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

A possible update?
Some major caveats with this (of course), but I want to believe... :-P Gizmodo Towards-the Unknown (talk) 22:18, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Well this looks promising
An independent team has decided that the manuscript uses a modified version of Old Turkish and has thus managed to translate over 30% of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6keMgLmFEk&t=0s Skadooshbag (talk) 00:15, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ooh! That does sound interesting, ! I'm a real history lover and figuring out the Voynich Manuscript would be pretty cool IMO. :3 Towards-the Unknown (talk) 01:07, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Another solution
The VM is actually the rule book for the game of Mornington Crescent transcribed from an announcement over the tannoy, and having been transported back in time in a process involving the wrong sort of leaves on the line, the wrong sort of snow, and going round the London Overground great circle (with a diversion via Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch involving Parliamentary trains). Anna Livia (talk) 17:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Non-Woo Hypothesis section added
Refiled the earlier paragraphs I wrote to it and edited them for brevity. The section also includes 's links.

Disappointing
Thanks for the recent edit. Unfortunately it turns out the author of the new article that claims to have deciphered the manuscript already put forward his theory back in 2017 when it was heavily criticised and shown to be nonsense:
 * http://ciphermysteries.com/2017/11/10/gerard-cheshire-vulgar-latin-siren-call-polyglot Tobias (talk) 23:57, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
 * In that case, I'll run the article edit back to before that was added (I don't know who added that entry). Towards-the Unknown (talk) 01:01, 10 April 2020 (UTC)