So, a bunch of people put this thing on their site that rates the blog's reading level. Like, "elementary school" or "high school" or "college" and so on. My blog (here ) was rated "Genius" which, of course, is hysterical and I can't believe that no one has called me on it... (see below).
More recently, a guy named Charles Arthur noticed this thing has an ad attached to it, and freaked. This has started a shockwave through the blogosphere, a tremor felt from Belfast to Bogner Regis, but I have determined that it is a problem with no substance. There is not a Trojan horse, or a virus, or anything more nefarious than usual. Just a weak stomached blogger over at The Guardian.
Charles Arthur is a whining baby (sorry Charlie). The blog readability test is not any more obnoxious than any of the dozen or so bloggable dohinkies that we use now and then to entertain our readers, and distract them from how boring we bloggers actually are. Most of them are ads for dating services, and the ads are all over the sites you go to to construct the widget. There are very few that are pure, ad-free open source creative productions (though there are some of those).
Before posting the reading level thing on my site I did two things. These are so utterly obvious that I would not think that an experienced blogger like Chuck (and I'm joking about him being a whining baby, he's actually got one of the best blogs at The Guardian) would need to know about them, but apparently so.
First, I ran the widget on a page from the MIT site, instead of on my site, so I would get up to Genius level (my site was seventh grade or something).
Second: the original widget says "Cash Advance" near the bottom and if you click on it, you go to the web site of some lending institution, but I changed that so that you go somewhere else, much more interesting and useful.
Subsequently, realizing that my readers are way too smart to click on something that says "cash advance," I changed the text as well.
Meanwhile, if you go over to Charles Arthur's site, the guy who started the bellyaching about this, and want to comment, you have to register first! THAT is way more annoying than an ad on a widget ... Even worse, if you DO comment, you will be moderated, as I was.
So, I need everybody to JUST CALM DOWN. We are not experiencing any sort of technical difficulty. Relax, tun in you favorite blog or TV show and have a beer.
Yes, I said beer. Go get a beer.
Comments
Of course, if you want a beer now without having to wait for payday, then you can always get a Cash Advance Here.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | December 9, 2007 11:08 PM
Because I'm a code monkey, I stripped out all the ad spam from the pasted code on my blog. Works perfectly.
Posted by: Tony P | December 9, 2007 11:25 PM
'Seventh Grade' is good. Readability grade level isn't one of those things where 'bigger is better'. It is measuring the education your readers have to have to be able to understand your writing. And the 'sweet spot' for that is seventh to ninth grade unless you are specifically writing for a technical audience. Newspapers aim for a sixth grade reading level.
Posted by: Benjamin Franz | December 10, 2007 7:32 AM
Ben: Indeed. Much of my commentary looks like 7th grade but is actually deep irony. Like the old BUllwinkle cartoons. Or that is, at least, what I aim for, as I was taught to do at Whatchamata U.
Posted by: Greg Laden | December 10, 2007 7:47 AM
Actually, my personal blog (linked) doesn't require you to register. Anyone can comment. The Guardian's blogs, which don't belong to me in any sense, do.
I didn't "freak" about the cash advance link/alt tag thing. I pointed out that it was a rather clever way of manipulating the blogosphere to up an unrelated site's ranking. You noticed the tags? Well done. Lots of people, I'd say, didn't. Which is why that company comes out top of the searches on cash advance.
Try reading the longer article at http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/dec/07/blogreadability?gusrc=rss&feed=global
- it has graphs and everything. No dancing bears yet, but we're working on it.
Posted by: Charles | December 10, 2007 6:06 PM