VMs: Re: VMS rant

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

My two (euro) cents' worth [*]:

Ciphers and codes serve two practical functions:
(1) to exclude outsiders
(2) in include insiders

However, I think it's important to understand that this inclusion and 
exclusion is not just *technological* but also *social* - only members of 
our gang know the secret password (etc).

When discussing the VMS, the words and terminology we casually throw around -
	gallows characters, maiolica, kabbalah, almanacke, astrological
	determinism, entropy, merlons, demilunes, matrix, albarelli,
	inverse spiral, Dioscorides, finials, zodiac man, uroscopy,
	volvelles, vinci, nymphs, filaretian, (need I go on?)
- form a dense codebook that I'm sure can be quite intimidating to 
outsiders (and indeed probably to more insiders and lurkers than would be 
willing to openly admit it).

And beneath all of these writhing details and parallels is a single, 
primary source, whose contents seem to perpetually balance on a razor-thin 
edge between signal and noise, between sense and nonsense, between real and 
fake.

The problem is that, to the extent that we are a *community* united by a 
common goal, we have two (often conflicting) priorities:
(1) specialisation - searching out more detailed information, through 
cross-reference & analysis
(2) generalisation - making the insights and observations (from (1)) 
accessible to all

Clearly, the more specialised our research becomes, the more difficult it 
well be to reconcile these two - and to the degree that Voynichology is an 
*accumulative endeavour*, this is probably inevitable.

In view of this long-term downward slope, perhaps we should consider some 
kind of collaborational / technological solution, so that we can continue 
to accumulate ideas in a useful way - kind of like an online Voynich 
dictionary / encyclopaedia that we can (all) constantly add to.

To a certain degree, all I'm really describing is a usable index to both 
the mailing list archive and the EVT file (can I be the only person here 
that uses grep to search both of these?) plus perhaps a VMS 
mini-encyclopaedia ("Voynopaedia"?) that we can grow.

I'm sure this would be valuable in its own right, and we could add further 
useful layers of functionality and referentiality as we think of them.

Comments? :-)

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

[*] ...a little less than two (US) cents last time I looked. :-)