Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Bots and gadgets/Readability scores gadget

Random proposal ►◄ Bots and gadgets The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

Readability scores gadget

Problem: Many of our articles are (accidentally) written for an academic audience, leaving behind our average reader (see for instance this journal).
Proposed solution: Made a gadget that can show (various) readability scores of article(s), and paragraphs within. Most readability scores like the Flesch reading ease score are based on word and sentence length. Others like Dale-Chall readability formula are based on how familiar (or common) the used words are. I think it is good to have at least one of both categories. The weighting of these tests typically varies by language, so maybe it would only be feasible to do this for the biggest 10-20 languages. Smaller wikis that translate would benefit indirectly.
Available tools are often insufficient. Readability of Wikipedia is English-only, and quite buggy. Copy-pasting it to websites like Hemingway is time-consuming as citations need to be manually removed.
Who would benefit: Readers with an average education level. On simplewiki, English-language learners and younger readers.
More comments: Add some basic statistics about article/section/paragraph being translated is a similar proposal focused on translated text.
Phabricator tickets:
Proposer: Femke (talk) 20:08, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Yes "Readability of Wikipedia" does not seem to tell you what is hard to read. And it sometimes comes up with the confusing "Some errors were detected in the mark-up of the Wikipedia article, which could affect the Flesch score" even for featured articles, which seems unlikely. There does not seem to be a way to report bugs. If it is no longer being maintained maybe the creators would give it to us for someone to improve and integrate in as a tool? Chidgk1 (talk) 13:14, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This could also be used to identify articles in English Wikipedia that are already (almost) simple enough to be included in the Simple English Wikipedia. Ottawajin (talk) 05:38, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Readers can easily determine that an article is too difficult. Excess complexity is a real issue. Editors might be interested in a metric that would encourage them to simplify difficult articles. Lfstevens (talk) 05:45, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I just have a very basic question: is this actually portable to other languages easily? - I mean given a list of "difficult words", can it be applied to Arabic, Afrkaans, or Chinese, for example (Note: I am the person who proposed the translation issue linked above)--Eptalon (talk) 22:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
There is some scientific literature on the topic, such as this 2019 paper, and this 2021 paper. The first compares 6 languages (including Basque), the second one is a machine learning application that seems to be extendable more generally. It's not a trivial task, but I believe it is possible to find 'conversions' in the literature. Femke (talk) 21:11, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Femkemilene: I suggested something a bit like this, a few years ago: phab:T135321 "Vocabulary assistant for Simple Wikipedia, based on Upgoer Text Editors". Hope that helps! Quiddity (talk) 07:39, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I now see there is phab:T91338 too, which is even closer to this proposal. Femke (talk) 20:33, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Voting

Support EpicPupper (talk) 22:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Izno (talk) 22:45, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 23:42, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Daud Iffa (talk) 23:49, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support 5225_C (talk • contributions) 00:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --𝑇𝑚𝑣 (𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘) 01:03, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ottawajin (talk) 05:35, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lectrician1 (talk) 05:56, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --Флаттершай (talk) 06:23, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aca (talk) 12:24, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support — SHEIKH (Talk) 12:32, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Mbrickn (talk) 15:25, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Joseph Pelorus (talk) 20:49, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Glenn984 (talk) 22:44, 29 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Thingofme (talk) 02:40, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support TheInternetGnome (talk) 07:27, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support —— Eric Liu_（Talk） 07:55, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support --g (talk) 15:19, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Titore (talk) 17:24, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Libcub (talk) 21:29, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Daniel Case (talk) 05:02, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lfstevens (talk) 05:46, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support 🌸 Sakura emad 💖 (talk) 15:30, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Sadads (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Dave Braunschweig (talk) 22:17, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Shooterwalker (talk) 22:33, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Scann (talk) 11:29, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Alain Artivalys (talk) 13:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support KingAntenor (talk) 06:08, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:39, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support HouseBlaster (talk) 01:06, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support DanCherek (talk) 03:09, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Aimwin66166 (talk) 06:00, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support WikiAviator (talk) 09:55, 3 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Bibeyjj (talk) 20:09, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gary D Robson (talk) 22:28, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would be a boon for simplewiki, integrate it with something to check the simplicity of articles too if possible. Mako001 (talk) 03:29, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Especially the first sentence of the intro is often too long. Tomastvivlaren (talk) 08:59, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Eden the plant nerd (talk) 15:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Exilexi (talk) 17:24, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support This would be really neat! paul2520 (talk) 19:33, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose --Ciao • Bestoernesto • ✉ 03:03, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Ayumu Ozaki (talk) 05:09, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Actorsofiran (talk) 19:09, 6 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Eric0892 (talk) 02:14, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support LRFtheLion (talk) 02:20, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support PtolemyXV (talk) 22:46, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Worldbruce (talk) 15:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Quiddity (talk) 07:39, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support Gaurav (talk) 03:51, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Support DSparrow14 (talk) 16:50, 11 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]