attac-t Stranger
"The writer is the one person who cannot tell whether the writing works."
plain-english sets the bar. This is how you find out whether you met it.
Why a score cannot do this
A count reads shape. It cannot read meaning.
| A script can check | A script cannot check |
|---|---|
| word and sentence length | whether the grammar sounds natural |
| a duplicated sentence | whether an image hides the rule |
| a missing heading | whether two sentences mean the same thing |
| a broken link or example | whether a promise outruns what exists |
| which file owns a default | whether the reader understood |
Never present a number as proof of the right-hand column. A file is not clear because an awk
script exited zero. Say which of the two you ran.
Who counts as a stranger
Someone who did not write it, did not watch it being written, and does not need it explained.
Give them the file. Nothing else. No issue, no pull request, no chat, no author in the room.
An agent may stand in for a person. Say so in the record. A model reading its own output is the writer, not a stranger, and its verdict proves nothing.
The seven questions
Ask these, in this order, and write down what comes back:
- Why does this exist?
- What is each section doing?
- What is true right now?
- Which sentences are a promise, a hope, a bet or a rule?
- Who acts, and who decides?
- What is still unknown?
- What, if anything, must you do?
Then ask for one paragraph in their own words.
Reading the answers
A paraphrase that differs in substance is a failure, however well the file scored.
| What came back | What it means |
|---|---|
| they cannot answer 1 | the file never says why it exists |
| they cannot answer 3 or 4 | claim kinds are collapsed — see conclusion |
| they cannot answer 5 | an actor is missing — see plain-english |
| two strangers give different missions | the file says two things |
| they call it clever but cannot act | an aphorism is doing a rule's job |
| they ask for the issue | the file leans on history it does not carry |
Fix the file, never the reader. A reader who needed one more sentence was right.
Record it
Four lines, kept with the work:
reader a person, or the model that stood in
input the exact file, at a commit
questions the seven, plus the paraphrase
answers what they said, not what you hoped
A review nobody can check is not evidence. Without the reader, the input and the answers, it is one more claim.
See example — one file that passed every count and failed four of the seven questions.