More focus on the English, less on the suit.

GorT read ‘Puter’s latest post with amusement – enjoying his tossing of District Board Policies at the board – until GorT got to the footnotes. For those that didn’t read that far (maybe validating one of the footnotes) or missed it in ‘Puter’s formatting, I re-present the item in question here:

Also, the extension GorT put on the blogging software that says this post’s readability “needs improvement” can suck it. Those programmers’ moms “need improvement.

So, the “extension” in question is actually in place to help people find the blog via internet searches. Specifically, the extension raised the following issues with ‘Puter’s post:

• The copy scores 49 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered difficult to read. Try to make shorter sentences, using less difficult words to improve readability.
• The text does not contain any subheadings. Add at least one subheading.
• 39.4% of the sentences contain more than 20 words, which is more than the recommended maximum of 25%. Try to shorten the sentences.
• 16.7% of the sentences contain passive voice, which is more than the recommended maximum of 10%. Try to use their active counterparts.
• The text contains 3 consecutive sentences starting with the same word. Try to mix things up!
• 1 of the paragraphs contains more than the recommended maximum of 150 words. Are you sure all information is about the same topic, and therefore belongs in one single paragraph?

Keep in mind, ‘Puter (the once-English major) is giving the computer guy an issue over a programming thing. So here is the computer guy taking on the English critiques*.

First, I’ll give ‘Puter a pass on the Flesch Reading Ease test since our blog doesn’t pull any punches and we’ll use difficult words and more complex sentences because we believe our readers can handle it. Why we should write more simply to make our posts easier to read baffles me. We had a priest who taught at Catholic University periodically visit our parish growing up. GorT, Sr. told my brother and I to listen closely to his homilies which frequently used challenging words and took complex issues head on with no sugar coating.

Second, we don’t need subheadings unless we want to use them. Pound sand.

Third, clearly this extension hasn’t met ‘Puter. He is not one short of speech and will gladly weave a complicated statement.

Fourth, hmmm, this surprised me. ‘Puter isn’t passive nor one to make heavy use of the passive voice.

Fifth, did you spot it?

Sixth, when ‘Puter writes who knows if all the information is about the same topic. Keeping him focused can be a challenge.

* By the way, the extension rates this post’s readability as Good.

GorT

GorT is an eight-foot-tall robot from the 51ˢᵗ Century who routinely time-travels to steal expensive technology from the future and return it to the past for retroinvention. The profits from this pay all the Gormogons’ bills, including subsidizing this website. Some of the products he has introduced from the future include oven mitts, the Guinness widget, Oxy-Clean, and Dr. Pepper. Due to his immense cybernetic brain, GorT is able to produce a post in 0.023 seconds and research it in even less time. Only ’Puter spends less time on research. GorT speaks entirely in zeros and ones, but occasionally throws in a ڭ to annoy the Volgi. He is a massive proponent of science, technology, and energy development, and enjoys nothing more than taking the Czar’s more interesting scientific theories, going into the past, publishing them as his own, and then returning to take credit for them. He is the only Gormogon who is capable of doing math. Possessed of incredible strength, he understands the awesome responsibility that follows and only uses it to hurt people.