Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by gault8121 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

gault8121

Here are the text complexity scores from different measures for this text.

Flesch Reading Ease score: -24 (text scale) Flesch Reading Ease scored your text: impossible to comprehend.

Gunning Fog: 40.7 (text scale) Gunning Fog scored your text: EXTREMELY difficult to read.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 35.7 Grade level: College Graduate and above.

The Coleman-Liau Index: 13 Grade level: college

The SMOG Index: 25 Grade level: graduate college

Automated Readability Index: 41.7 Grade level: College graduate

Linsear Write Formula : 57.5 Grade level: College Graduate and above.

View on HN

In case anyone wants to use these for some other writing...

Flesch Reading Ease score: https://www.textcompare.org/readability/flesch-kincaid-readi...

Gunning Fog: https://www.textcompare.org/readability/gunning-fog-score/

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: https://www.textcompare.org/readability/flesch-kincaid-grade...

The Coleman-Liau Index: https://www.textcompare.org/readability/coleman-liau-index

The SMOG Index: https://www.textcompare.org/readability/smog-index/

Automated Readability Index: https://www.textcompare.org/readability/automated-readabilit...

Linsear Write Formula : https://www.textcompare.org/readability/linsear-write/

The site actually seems to have quite a few different methods available, if you look at the footer.

This might actually help me with some of the writing in my own blog posts and such, to check whether any paragraphs don't get too convoluted.

Oh, also there's this site, which attempts to show you the particular sentences that might be hard to read: https://hemingwayapp.com/

Are you suggesting that our legal system should be understandable by the dumbest person? I don't see how that's feasible or desirable.

I doubt that is what they are saying. It seems more likely they are saying the text should not be "extremely difficult to read" or "impossible to comprehend".

Though actually what they are saying is "I put the text in these algorithms and got these scores". It is left to others to draw conclusions like I did above.

Yes, exactly. You can draw whatever conclusion you'd like from the data, and many text scoring systems have issues, but there is still a clear pattern here where this text is far outlier.

I think we can find some middle ground between understandable-by-dumbest-person and "impossible to comprehend".

> "The text achieves a minimum score of 45 on the Flesch reading ease test as computed in subsection (5) or an equivalent score on any other test comparable in result and approved by the office;"

https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2011/627.4145

These are the scores for the ballot measure that Texas voters were supposed to vote yes or no on.

So absolutely yes. When you're asking people to vote on something, and you actually want informed voters, I unquestionably want ballot measures to be understandable by everyone that reads them.

Exactly - The Flesch Kincaid gives you ranges, and it's reasonable for amendments to be within a certain range. For example, in Florida, all life insurance policies must have a Flesch Kincaid score of at least 45. This still scores as "Difficult to Fairly Difficult." It'd be interesting to see what the readability scores are for different amendments. > "The text achieves a minimum score of 45 on the Flesch reading ease test as computed in subsection (5) or an equivalent score on any other test comparable in result and approved by the office;"

https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2011/627.4145

Not by the dumbest person but by a majority of people. If citizens are expected to follow the law and if ignorance of the law is not an excuse then it should be comprehensible by the majority.

The Flesch Kincaid gives you ranges, and it's reasonable for amendments to be within a certain range. For example, in Florida, all life insurance policies must have a Flesch Kincaid score of at least 45.

> "The text achieves a minimum score of 45 on the Flesch reading ease test as computed in subsection (5) or an equivalent score on any other test comparable in result and approved by the office;"

https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2011/627.4145

Everyone is subject to the law. How can you have any hope of following a law you cannot read? It certainly should be a goal.

Like everyone else - from the most destitute individual to the most sophisticated megacorporation - you can ask someone more literate.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

Anatole France

Nice, are you gonna pay for my consulation with the lawyer?

I have spent the equivalent of a house deposit on immigration lawyers just to make sure paperwork is filed correctly and I know what I am allowed / not allowed to do. Many people simply can't afford that.

also school system does not teach you anything about criminal law or your rights, but teaches you poetry and differential equasions.

No: That'd be impossible.

But it is reasonable to have these sorts of things understandable to the average high school graduate and to the average retiree (different schooling, different mental statuses). And by average, I truly mean that the range of average should be able to read it so that comprehension should be widespread.

If your average high school graduate cannot comprehend it, your wording is too difficult, your education too poor, your document was written by people without the skills to talk plainly, or a combination of these.

It seems too obvious to be worth saying: the law should be simple enough to understand that people of good will can comply with it without engaging a lawyer.

Very few of us have a lawyer in our back-pocket nowadays. Sure, laws regulating some kinds of financial transactions and contracts are necessarily going to be complicated and hard to understand. But the general rule should be "If the law isn't something an ordinary person could be expected to know, then they aren't bound by it". That would put an end to clever-clever legal drafting.

I think the Feynman technique would be an excellent improvement to the situation, so yes.

No, but it should not be intentionally obfuscated either; there's a middle ground.

But it should be simplified if it's intended to be read and comprehended by the general public. This is an issue now with terms of service and contracts, to the point where people who cannot comprehend the language are being exploited.

> Are you suggesting that our legal system should be understandable by the dumbest person?

If possible, on a case by case basis. If it's difficult, we lock people in a room for 8 hours a day from age 5 to 17, and don't let them leave until they understand. If it still doesn't work, we get rid of the law.

There is another solution. Write laws in at least two languages: English and Spanish.

This approach does wonders in Switzerland and in Belgium.

It's a boon to EU to get rid of most of native English speakers, btw. See this opinion by a famous Belgian philosopher on the matter [1].

[1] https://www.brusselstimes.com/290948/forced-to-speak-in-a-fo...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com