There’s a new meme circulating through the blogosphere, the “Blog Readability Test”. Just go to http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx and enter the URL of your (or anyone else’s) blog and it’ll tell you what level of education is necessary to understand your blog. Possibilities include “High School”, Elementary School” and “Genius”.
Oddly, this seems to raise more questions than it answers…
Is it good if readers have to be geniuses to comprehend your blog? And how is the determination made? Sentence structure? Vocabulary? And if the latter, how does the system differentiate between misspellings, typos, gibberish, etc. and words that just aren’t in its dictionary? (In other words, will my blog’s “education level” be raised or lowered by the inclusion of the word “rhabdomyosarcoma”? How about if I include it but misspell it?)
Sadly, it doesn’t look as if we’ll ever know the answers to these questions because the proprietors of the test don’t provide any insight into how it works. It’s a pity because I think the inner workings could be more interesting than the results. As it is, we have a classic example of a “black box”: We see only what goes in and what comes out, and lacking any information as to what takes place to produce the output, have no way to interpret or value it.
But the hell with all that! What’s really lame are the designations themselves. “Elementary School”, “High School”, “Genius” — bah! How about some real world categories that would actually tell us for whom our blog is best suited? Naturally, I have suggestions. When my “blog reading-level evaluator” goes on line it will have the following categories (in no particular order):
- Heavy Metal Fan
- Potted Plant
- Person Who Did Too Much LDS in the Sixties
- Person Who Completes the Sunday NY Times Crossword in 15 Minutes
- Person Who Completes the TV Guide Crossword in 15 Hours
- Person Who Assembles Motorcycle Engines in the Living Room
- Person Who Assembles Nuclear Particle Accelerators in the Living Room
- Dungeons & Dragons Player
- Person Who Knows the Proper Way to Arrange 7 Forks at a Dinner Table Setting
- Person Who Might Be Described as a “Muzzle-Loader”
- Someone Who Frequently Uses the Word “Oeuvre” in Spoken Conversation
- Someone Who Cannot Ever Talk About Anything Other Than Politics
- A Person Who Can Play the Bagpipes… But is Considerate Enough Not To
- Professional Football Player
- Professional Scrabble Player
- Britney Spears
- Britney Spears Impersonator
Now I just need someone to design icons for all these categories. Any volunteers?
some of us did too much, uh, “LDS” in the seventies, thank you.
what’s wrong with assembling motorcycle engines in the living room?
WRONG with it? “Assembling motorcycle engines in the living room” is the highest category! (I did say they weren’t in any particular order.)
Don’t worry, Cog. Those of you who did too “LDS” in the sixties or seventies won’t know or care. ;)
I’m gonna take a guess, based on myself and not my writing. Somewhere between “Dungeons and Dragons player” and “A Person Who Can Play the Bagpipes But is Considerate Enough Not To”. Oh, gees, that’s a whole blog entry all by itself….