Susie wrote:glurk wrote:Paul_Averly wrote:A while back we were talking about "forced solutions."
...and this is a great example of one of those.
I agree. I wasn't even going to post on this at all. Some solutions may have some merit and are worthy of further discussion. This is not one.
-glurk
Welcome bigdoug and I'm sorry for the initial response you received, such as the two above. There are a lot of theories on these sites that I don't agree with; however rather than being a jerk about it I try to be respectful of other people's thoughts. Responses like these are why so many people are afraid to post on sites. There are people who have a lot more knowledge about the case and have been spending years on it, but newsflash no one has solve the case. So rather than being disrespectful to other people who are making attempts maybe you should explain to them why you don't think their theories are accurate. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing about people's theories but there is something wrong with being rude. If you feel that strongly that a theory is far off then maybe you should just keep your mouth shut rather than discouraging people from making attempts.
Susie-
This is actually a bit insulting, and I think you mistake my forthright honesty as rudeness. I wasn't actually going to post on this topic, as I said, but Morf specified me by name and wanted to hear my opinion. So I gave it honestly.
I've been working on the Z ciphers since mid-2006 or so, and have written a freely available computer cipher solver, and done quite a lot of other work as well. I'd like to at least hope that I know a bit about this stuff. And in my experience, I find that if you "pussyfoot around" on these things and try to avoid "hurt feelings" it does a disservice to everyone. It's a sort of dishonesty by omission.
Do you have any idea how many bad solutions have come up in the last nine years? And how much time it would take to do a full analysis and explanation of them all? It would be a full-time job. I'd like to see the 340 and the other ciphers solved as much as (maybe more than) anyone, but I'd also like to see people quit making the same mistakes over and over (and over again.)
If I were to write an essay, story, novel, whatever and give it to a friend to review, I wouldn't want to be mollycoddled. I'd want an honest opinion, even if it were brutal. It's how we all learn and improve.
Stick around the Z case a few years, you will see. The language becomes more direct, and the skin grows a bit thicker. But it's a good thing.
-glurk