Re: VMs: I have stunned myself

[Seth <sethm@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff,

First, I want to encourage you in your work, you seem to making some 
sort of progress.  In what direction exactly, I cannot say.  But I'm 
glad to see you have such enthusiasm for it, and perhaps something great 
will come of it soon enough.

However, I would also like to offer some gently guiding criticism, not 
meant to detract from what you're doing, but hopefully to help you 
toward greater success.

I understand your desire to give the list some examples of what you've 
been discovering  in order to get quick feedback, but I think you're 
going about it in the wrong way.  You've never actually explained your 
methods in detail, or how you hope to accomplish further progress. 
Instead you give us puzzling snippets that may or may not be meaningful, 
and ask us to see whether they make sense.  It feels random to me, and 
I'm not good at proceeding this way.  I appreciate the desire to look 
for patterns, but it doesn't seem very helpful to keep giving us 
snippets of "plaintext" without explaining how you derived them.  It 
would be most helpful if you could summarize what you're doing, how 
you're going about it, and especially if you could note what folio and 
what lines you're working from.  What is your source material?  What 
transcription are you working from?  What method are you using?  I think 
others would be better able to help you if you would offer more 
illumination of your ways.

Again, I certainly do not mean to discourage what you're doing, whatever 
it is -- it seems, at least from first glance, that it may have promise, 
and that's exciting!  Please, please continue.  But I do wish you would 
help fill in the blanks a little more, and perhaps do a little less 
posting of preliminary results that may or may not mean anything.  It's 
like casting a net into unknown waters and hoping you catch a fish.  The 
more we work together, the faster we can make progress.  Others have 
failed or given up because of their isolation from each other, and for 
the first time in history the Internet is giving us the tools we need to 
collaborate at any distance, almost instantly.  It would be a pity if 
you were so close to an answer and just happened to miss it by chance, 
when a fresh pair of eyes may have caught the error or inconsistency in 
your methods.

-Seth


Jeff wrote:

> This is the latest to come out of the VMS. DOES ANYONE RECOGNIZE
> ANYTHING!!!!
>
> For the first time vowel placement appears to be even. I do not know if all
> the letter placements are right but it looks like a language!!!!
>  
[...]

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