Yesterday I found an online tool called the Blog Readability Test from a post on Evil Avatar that is supposed to test “what reading level is required to understand your blog”. I assume it applies some kind of reading-level algorithm after searching the front page of whatever website you type in; Mental Floss [via Game|Life] thinks it’s likely an implementation of the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula. I guess the results could be interpreted as an indicator of whether you should simplify or tune up your writing depending on if you are targeting a particular audience and who that audience is. The below results were obtaining by entering the main site addresses so readability results will very likely vary among individual full-length posts.
WARNING: This is not meant to be criticism of any particular blogger(s), but rather just as a interesting post about artificial classifications of writing. So don’t flame me, blame the formula!
Elementary School
AD2225
ikimashou
THAT Anime Blog
Junior High School
Anime Desho Desho?
Ani-Nouto
Epic Win Blog
Itsumo Anime Blog
Kita ze Inbou!
Minaide Hazukashii
More Shadows
Novastorm
Omonomono
orz
Ramblings of DarkMirage
Riuva
That’s Not Kanon
YSP: Duh!
High School
a geek by any other name
Anime Diet
BasuGasuBakuhatsu
Daijoubu
Ex-Fansubber Hitorigoto
Gnostic Lone Wolf Poetry:
Hontou ni sou omou?
Hontou ni Taihen desu
Hop Step Jump
Kurogane’s Anime Blog
Manga Maniac Cafe
Memento
Moe Check!
Scrumptious Anime Blog
Sea Slugs!
Star Crossed Anime Blog
This Blog Does Not Start With A
What is eternity doing tonight?
College (Undergrad)
11~15% suki
Drastic My Anime Blog
Hige vs. Otaku
Nigorimasen!
Random Curiosity
Genius
Anime Blog ga Arimasu
Azure Flame
Beta-Waffle
Cinnamon Ass
Cruel Angel Theses
Derailed By Darry (formerly Anime on My Mind)
Picture Perfect Paranoia
For comparison, here are some mainstream anime or Japan-focused sites:
AnimeOnDVD: Elementary School (supporting evidence for it being a quick front-page scan)
Japundit: Junior High School
Japanator: High School
Japan Probe: High School
What Japan Thinks: College [Undergrad]
ANN: Genius (hmm?)
Heisei Democracy: Genius
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Entries (RSS)
LOL, no dannychoo.com?
Heh, this is fun. I mean, this test is absolutely meaningless, even for measuring accessibility (for example, I’m not sure if Minaide, Hazukashii is really suitable for junior high students, or if you need to be a genius to understand AoMM), but nevertheless it’s one of those absolutely useless but interesting thing to have around :D
As expected, the nuances of HARD GAY can only be understood by geniuses ;p
double: I chose not to include Danny Choo’s site because most, if not all, of his posts are very short on his main page. It rang up “Elementary School”, BTW.
Lupus: The formula this test is supposedly using takes into account total syllables, words, and sentences to compute a rough estimate of verbal complexity while ignoring what is actually being written about.
I’m not that much into the usability thing myself but thought this was too simple to use to not mention, although I wish it would have also spit out an approximate grade level. For example, this post has a reading level of “College (Postgrad)” which totally doesn’t make sense to me.
Karura: Apparently so.
I’ve actually been trying (and failing, apparently) to keep to a junior high school reading level for my blog, since that’s the rough target audience for most of my subject matter. I suppose high school is close enough. (That, or I’m overestimating junior high school.)
From what I remember of various such tests, jargon (or what the test assumes to be jargon) tends to up the reading level of a block of text significantly, more so than length of words. I’m just guesstimating, though.
I wonder if my writing ranked College Level because was actually that rating, or because it’s hard to understand at first? :P
Either ways, this is a fun idea, though it seems a little inaccurate. :3
Considering the pool of geniuses is much smaller than the pool of people with at least elementary school level, we can assume that the blogs ranking near the top of the page are higher in popularity, generally.
Beta-Waffle? Genius level? Either that proves the test is extremely broken, or it’s the exception that proves the rule ^^;
Hahah I bet mine’s high school because of all the cursing. xD
And LOL @ that being elementary XD
What I don’t get is why JP’s blog (www.minaidehazukashii.com) is at JR High School Level. He writes posts using more vocab than I know. Maybe it’s all those Naruto porn posts that are bringing him down XD
Weird how it says my blog is college post graduate because I know that my writing style is not even at a undergraduate level, lol.
Haha, that’s a rather interesting benchmark. Just for kicks though, it would’ve been a lot funnier if you had Photoshopped those to all say “This Blog’s Intelligence Level”.
Of course, ANN coming up as Genius Level proves the system is broken, so w/e. :P
Also lol @ Hinano.
Well, I mean words like “Zizek” or “jouissance” or “Foucault” or “Bourdieu” are only 2 syllable words after all.
tj han: So you’re saying that writing to the lowest level readers gets you more hits? Isn’t that always the case? :P
If a five-year-old can’t understand what I’m writing, then all my efforts have gone to naught.
NOES