stop-slop
Based on stop-slop by Hardik Pandya, used under the MIT License. Hardik wrote the original five rules, the first quick checks, the scoring grid, the core phrase and structure tables and examples 1 to 5. Gaurav Tiwari added the severity model, the voice-preserving defaults, rules 6 to 9, the self-audit, more checks, phrase and structure sections and examples 6 to 13. See LICENSE.
Stop Slop
Slop is predictable writing. A reader feels it within two sentences: the throat-clearing opener, the "not X, but Y" flip, the em dash before a reveal and a closing line that would fit any article on the internet.
I run this on every piece of copy before it ships. The goal is to remove the predictable parts and leave the writer in place. A pass that strips the slop and the voice with it has failed too.
How I Read a Match
A tell is evidence to inspect, not proof. Sort every finding before you change anything:
- Hard fail: production or process narration in reader-facing copy. A caption that says how the image was made, a "fresh screenshot," the name of the tool you used, a list of what you could not test. Rewrite or delete it. A good score never rescues it.
- Warn if repeated: a scaffold that works once and turns robotic by the third time. "No X. Just Y." Mirrored contrasts. Lists of three. Count the whole family across the piece before you touch one.
- Contextual review: a word or phrase with honest uses. Read the sentence first. Quotations, code, product names and precise technical terms stay.
- Structural diagnostic: a document-level pattern, such as paragraphs of identical length or equal space for options that do not matter equally. Find the cause. Never add fragments, emotion or asides only to break the pattern.
Facts sit above all of this. A clean draft with an invented number or an untested claim still fails.