As a long-time reader of the site, it feels to me like lately (ie. around the time Conde Nast bought them) the quality started slowly but surely sliding down. This here is yet another minor data-point that reinforces that feeling.
The original article covering the supposed discovery was written like it's pretty much a solved thing (yes, all the usual CYA phrases are there so the author can weasel out if it turns out not to be true). Yet for anyone who's ever heard about the Voynich manuscript, the extraordinary claim that it's deciphered should be substantiated with an extraordinary amount of evidence, the lack of which wasn't questioned at all.
Then, without as much as "oops, we've been duped too", the author goes on to describe why claims covered by the first article by so much enthusiasm are not true or proven, ending with an ad-hominem about the "discoverer". This (minus the ad hominems) really should've been part of the original article. Hell, split it into two pages if you're after the clicks!
To me, this says more about Ars than about the (non)issue at hand - it's finally slid down to the level of a typical net publication.
Sad!