With a tag line of "OT vs. T&S" you sit there hoping for a Bloggernacle version of Celebrity Deathmatch between the Canadian big blog and the American big blog, with much bloodshed and gratuitous violence. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. However, Kim does point to an interesting tool that presents what appears to be a reasonably robust measure of a web site's readability.
Lets compare, for example, Jim F's most impenetrable post ever, the Dear Jane Doe letter (which left the intended recipient nonplussed) results with that of fMh's infamously awful Sex Talk thread results. Obvious outcome, right?
What? Hey, wait a minute. fMh is more foggy and less easy to read than T&S? Whoa. Props to the gals at fMh for being the most educated and smartest sounding blog, moreso than T&S! You go girl!
Well, I guess that proves that all of us here at SnarkerNacle were wrong when we said that T&S was the most pretentious blog on the Nacle! T&S, we are so sorry for all those nasty things we said about you all being pedantic and pretentious. I mean, clearly, you aren't the smartest, most clever, most scholarly, most erudite blong on the Nacle when fMh's worst thread beats your best example of abstruce incarnate. Big obsequious apologies to all you T&S permabores, from all of us here at SN Industries LTD. Will you ever forgive us? Please?
13 comments
"Abstruse"
The fine print at the readability site is that all rendered text, including nagivtion links and so on, goes into the score. So it is apparant what T&S have done: they have their long lists of 'nacle links, not out of the goodness of their hearts towards other naclers, but as a way of cheating the objective readability measure in order to achieve plausible deniability of pretensiousness!
A much better snark about things like the sex thread would be how the nacle seems to attract the weird eunuchs among us. Isn’t that the essence of T&S? The amount of sexual dysfunction and incompatibility reported on those threads, in a day when surveys indicate even a majority of LDS sleep together before marriage, is just utterly beyond belief. I loved the one from the guy who was worried that his wife might love a toy more than him. That’s about as loony as a guy worried if his wife gave him a great _______, he’d never want intercourse again. Crazy!
Snar-Kurtte,
Apology accepted. We will hoard it in our bin of apologies that we use to power our blog.
Christian,
You're on to our foul plot. We also only show a couple sentences of each post on the front page in an effort to minimize innocent exposure to our insanity.
In the same vein, I bet Jim's post would get a very different score if you just ran Jim's post rather than all the comments (and links) with it. I don't know whether that would make us look better or not...
Ouch. Getting out-intellectualed by FMH has got to be the ultimate disgrace.
T&S might as well close up shop.
I think the real conclusion to draw here is that automated readability scores are meaningless. Sorry to disappoint those with an unfailing faith in technology...
Frank,
If T&S is powered on well-deserved apologies, its no wonder your blog is so lackluster.
I remain unconvinced. T&S oozes pretention, and I will provide what I think is the perfect example. Rosalynde's profile states that she " dissertated under the title 'Placing Private Conscience in Early Modern England,'". Unlike the rest of us, who simply wrote PdD dissertations entitled "XYZ", Rosalynde dissertated under the title!!!!!!! That is pretentious nonsense.
I dont know about being pretentious here, but we disertated tonight with stawberry shortcake with real fresh strawberries and low fat cool whip. Does that count?
Steve EM:
in a day when surveys indicate even a majority of LDS sleep together before marriage
If you're gonna make a claim which blows right by the border of believable and careens right into the realm of the absurd, at least provide a link.
Hey d. golden, G-d bless. I remember one such survey over a decade ago in the SLT indicating that ~58% of Utah LDS slept together before marriage. That pretty much correlates with my impression when I lived in Utah. I'm sure it's higher now. Why do you think our single twenty-something activity rate is in the teens? And I remember countless times being asked for sexual tips at BYU from “Joe Mormon” friends who were obviously becoming sexually active but weren't going to wave a flag about it. Many of them married in to temple too, not something I would recommend. And then there's UVSC, UofU, etc. Need I say more? In real life biology ends up trumping morals for most. If the church were more accommodating of sexually active singles in a hospital for sinners mode, we would retain a lot more young people who would eventually settle down and become with-the-program married Mormons. I was only saved by a fortuitous relationship with my active LDS wife-to-be, who dragged me back to church to confess when I asked her to marry me. The church could do a much better job of dealing with the realities in this area and not leaving things to happenstance. We've lost most of a generation on this one.
"If the church were more accommodating of sexually active singles in a hospital for sinners mode, we would retain a lot more young people who would eventually settle down and become with-the-program married Mormons."
Steve, even as a disenfranchised semi-active YSA, I find that reasoning ridiculous.
Young Single Adults don't go inactive because they want to get laid; they go inactive for a litany of reasons, which include things like falling though the cracks in a Church that is based on families, feeling like pariahs for their lack of spouse, or just simple disbelief.
crystal,
I prefer the PC term less active. As a former endowed elder, post mission, less active serial fornicator, I assure you there is no place in the LDS church for people dealing with that very common weakness and they know it having been so taught from their youth. The church seems happy to write off most of a generation. And I didn’t mean to imply that we fall into such sin actively “wanting to get laid”; it just happens because it’s a natural step at some point in a healthy relationship. The LofC as promulgating by the church is a biblical standard from a time of pre-pubescent arranged marriages that really doesn’t work today when people typically marry in their 20s out of love. I also assume that I was a rarity, and most who fall away due to sexual sin (and there are a lot of them) do lose their faith over time. Today I’m sure that most LDS single 20-somethings (what's the activity rate 13-14%?) are sexually active, as are most 20-somethings generally, and thus feel unwelcome at church for at least that reason. Surveys aside, it’s self evident that most LDS today sleep together before marriage.
I’ll add that having sex without contemplating marriage is two way street. I only learned last year I fathered my first child decades ago at BYU with a gf who abruptly dumped me and quickly married some active Joe Mormon putz. I definitely would have married her had she told me, but obviously I wasn’t suitable husband material for her. So some sap (now deceased) raised my oldest boy, and I will probably never know my son for fear of causing him harm. C’est la vie.
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