The response "this normative opinion is not falsifiable" is just confused—it's like saying "this empirical observation is not good."
I try to write using ordinary words and simple sentences. ... That kind of writing is easier to read, and the easier something is to read, the more deeply readers will engage with it.
This is a claim suggesting a cause-and-effect relationship between a certain type of writing and a certain behaviour on the part of people who read the article.
My feeling is that this claim could be falsifiable, provided the OP got specific about what "ordinary words" are, what "simple sentences" are, and what kind of "engagement" we wish to measure.
If he did so, the claim would be falsifiable. And in truth, I'm not going to say that if he did get precise, it would still not be falsifiable. Experience tells me that yes, we can identify cause-and-effect relationships between empirically measurable characteristics of prose and precise engagement metrics.
That is exactly the kind of thing that people do when they try to manufacture "clickbait" headlines.
But he chose to make these claims without being specific, and to me this is what makes it non-falsifiable, but not normative.
JM2C.
You are suggesting to write a proper paper, backed by proper research.
A paper would of course be useful. But it won't replace the short blurb, which communicates an idea in 2-3 minutes of reading.
"If It's Hard to Read, It's Hard to Do: Processing Fluency Affects Effort Prediction and Motivation"
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.200...
Words have a magic about them, and I don’t think Paul Graham would dispute that.
Data is not the basis of existence. Math itself is nothing but a derived value construct our minds play tricks with. 3 apples is a value system in the mind as we see it, not innately as it sits there.
Thus, when people say "I want data", they are saying to me, "I want a majority thought based on an abstraction of information (math)." You certainly didn't when you (and me and everyone else) were foraging for a nipple/bottle!
Sure, producers and consumers “find each other” but that’s no where near the end of the story.
You have a flaw in your reasoning here. Not all that is true is falsifiable.
I wish there was an A/B testing platform for writers
Like/dislike of writing style is so subjective, just like musical taste, so I can understand if it's not even possible to verbalize why. Perhaps it's just the "tone".
What our opinions have in common is that they are not falsifiable. Unless we validate our conjectures with empirical evidence, we're really just sharing our taste.
"Oh no," you may say, "I have tested it, and when I write a longer essay, my retweets and upvotes decline." Very well, but the plural of anecdote is not 'data.'
Somewhere else on the Internet, there is someone with poetic, dense writing. When they simplify it, their audience dries up.
Writers and audiences find each other. If you try to measure the effect of your writing using only an audience that has selected your writing voluntarily, you are not measuring your effectiveness, you are measuring the degree to which your writing pleases people who already like your writing.
Absent a properly constructed empirical approach, we might as well be discussing hemlines and necktie widths.