Who sets the read time estimates?

By Holly_Elmore @ 2018-12-28T16:41 (+9)

They seem really short...

gworley3 @ 2018-12-28T18:39 (+7)

I believe they are set at 300 words per minute, so a 1000 word post would either show as 3 or 4 minute read (depending on how it rounds). There was some discussion of this feature on LW recently if you wanted to join the conversation there about the feature as it's implemented upstream.

Holly_Elmore @ 2018-12-28T21:38 (+3)

Do you know why 300 words per minute was chosen? I think I'm below that and I know I'm not a slow reader. I feel like estimates that help you decide how to spend your time should be a little more generous. (But maybe I *am* a slow reader, idk.)

Habryka @ 2018-12-29T00:51 (+3)

Mostly just copying Medium's implementation, which seemed to be what most people were familiar with. I think they now use the slightly lower 265WPM, which they list as the "average reading speed of an adult", and I do expect readers of LW and the EA Forum to have a slightly higher reading speed than average.

Habryka @ 2018-12-28T20:34 (+2)

(This is correct)