How it works

Click the mop on any post and you get a breakdown: a score, a verdict, the Slopprint and three blue bars. Here's what each part means, what moves it, and what it can't tell you.

Reading the breakdown

Every part of the panel, top to bottom. This example post was flagged, so it's drawn in red.

172/ 100
2Likely slopEngagement bait and “not X, but Y” framing.
3
finepossiblylikely
4 The Slopprint {{ demoRadar }}
5 {{ demoBars }}
62 flagged as slop · 0 maybe · 1 no
  1. 1The score, out of 100. Higher means more slop-like. It's worked out after the three bars have taken their share off, so it's the final number.
  2. 2The verdict. Looks fine, Possibly slop or Likely slop, with the signs that pushed it there. Where the lines fall depends on your sensitivity setting (Mild, Moderate or Aggressive).
  3. 3The range bar. Where this post sits between fine and likely. In Hide mode a line marks where posts start folding away.
  4. 4The Slopprint. Nine signs of slop, one per spoke. The further out a point sits, the more of that sign Jev found. All nine, with examples.
  5. 5Three counter-signals. Sounds like a person, useful to readers and reader response. More blue means more evidence the post is worth reading. They can only lower the score, never raise it. There's no percentage because they're not grades: a short bar just means that line of defence isn't helping this post.
  6. 6Community votes. How other Slop Mop users voted on this post. Your own vote changes what you see; everyone's votes go into research on how well Slop Mop is working.
the slopprint

Nine signs of slop

Jev asks nine separate questions about the writing, one per spoke of the chart. The shape tells you what kind of slop a post is, not just how much. Six signs come from Graphite's research on AI tells, which compared human and model writing. The last three are LinkedIn habits we added ourselves.

One spike isn't enough

Plenty of people have one over-the-top habit. When only one sign stands out, the score is cut. Slop usually shows up as several signs at once, and that's what gets flagged.

Unsure answers count for less

Jev says how sure it is about each sign, and shaky answers carry less weight. If it isn't sure enough about the post overall, the post is left alone.

The weights are private

Some signs count for more than others. The exact weights aren't published, so nobody can write a post that games them. That's the only part of the scoring we keep private.

Scroll-stopper

dramatic hook, one-line paragraphs, a moral
SlopI got rejected 47 times. Then everything changed. Here's what I learned 👇
FineWe rebuilt our onboarding flow in March. Trial-to-paid went from 9% to 14%, and most of that came from cutting one form field.

Engagement bait

asking for comments, reposts and follows
SlopComment "GUIDE" and I'll DM you the template. ♻️ Repost to help your network.
FineIf you've tried this with a team under ten people, I'd like to hear what happened.A genuine question barely registers. Formula asks and giveaways keyed to comments are what count.

Hype words

marketing vocabulary
SlopThis game-changing framework will unlock unprecedented growth and elevate your brand.
FineThe framework cut our review cycle from five days to two.

Empty praise

evaluation with no detail behind it
SlopAn incredibly meaningful, truly transformative experience. This matters more than ever.
FineThe workshop got three of our five teams shipping behind feature flags within a week.

No-catch promises

all benefit, no cost
SlopScale your output without sacrificing quality, without burning out, and without hiring.
FineIt saves us about ten hours a week. Setup took a month and we lost two integrations.

“Not X, but Y”

defining things by what they aren't
SlopLeadership isn't a title. It's a mindset. It's not about being right, it's about being curious.
FineThe best managers I've had asked more questions than they answered in one-to-ones.

Flowery prose

flourish instead of the plain claim
SlopGrowth is a delicate dance between vision and humility, a tapestry woven from quiet moments.
FineWe grew because two customers referred six more.

Stiff phrasing

stock transitions and hedges
SlopFurthermore, this approach may provide additional benefits. Ultimately, it can support long-term outcomes.
FineIt helped. Not as much as we hoped, but enough to keep.

Too-tidy story

an anecdote that exists to prove the moral
SlopA junior employee once asked me a question I'll never forget. That day, I realised leadership is about listening.
FineLast Tuesday our intern found a bug in the billing export that three of us had missed for a month. We now review exports in pairs.
counter-signal 1 of 3

Sounds like a person

Does this read like one particular person, or like a generic professional voice that anyone could have written? Jev reads the text only.

What raises it

  • Specific personal detail: names, places, dates or numbers from the writer's own life or work
  • Word choices and asides that are clearly theirs
  • Uneven rhythm: long sentences, short ones, fragments
  • Contractions and casual qualifiers (“pretty”, “sort of”)

What doesn't count on its own

  • “I”, “my” or “we”
  • Naming the writer's company
  • “I believe”, “in my experience” and similar framing

Anyone writing on someone else's behalf uses those too, so they don't prove there's a real voice.

Impersonal and uniform. No identifiable person behind it.
First person or a named company, but the phrasing and rhythm could be anyone's.
A recognisable voice: some personal specifics, and phrasing or rhythm that feels like this writer's own.
Unmistakably one person: idiosyncratic phrasing, specific personal detail, varied rhythm, asides.
Short barAs leaders, we must embrace change. I believe the future belongs to those who adapt. At our company, we are committed to growth.It's in the first person, but anyone could have written it.
Long barSpent Monday rewriting our pricing page for the third time (don't ask). The version that finally worked was the ugly one my co-founder sketched on a train to Leeds.Details, an aside and a rhythm that only this person would produce.

What it does to the score

It takes a little off the slop score. It's a nudge, not an exemption: a very personal post stuffed with engagement bait can still be flagged.

This is not the same as “was it written by AI?” Slop Mop asks that separately, and the answer can only soften the score of a post that reads as typed by a person. It never flags a post by itself.

counter-signal 2 of 3

Useful to readers

Could someone doing the job learn something from this post, or act on it? Who or what wrote it doesn't matter. Useful AI-assisted writing scores just as well as useful writing typed by hand.

What counts

  • Specific facts and numbers
  • Named, concrete examples
  • First-hand experience, with the details
  • A method or step a reader could follow

What doesn't count on its own

  • An opinion or position, however well argued
  • A framing, a manifesto or a call for change
  • Citing a well-known source or disclaimer
  • “More on this in my next post”

A thoughtful opinion piece can be worth reading. It just isn't what this bar measures.

Nothing a reader could use: platitudes, self-promotion, or a teaser for other content.
Opinion, commentary or familiar advice: you learn the author's view, but no fact, example or method you didn't already have.
At least one specific thing a typical reader in the field wouldn't already know: a concrete example, number, first-hand result, or step to follow.
Substantial: several concrete details, real data or first-hand experience, and something you could act on today.
Short barAI is changing everything. Businesses that don't adapt will be left behind. The winners will be the ones who put customers first.True enough, but there's nothing a reader didn't already know.
Long barWe moved support triage to a two-question form. First response dropped from 11 hours to 3. The one thing it broke was refunds, so those now skip the form. The form is below.Numbers, a trade-off and something you could copy tomorrow.

Useful isn't the same as popular

A post nobody has commented on yet can score high here, and a viral post can score low. Popularity has its own bar, reader response. When a post is checked again later, Jev sees what readers have done since. Real discussion and reposts count as evidence that people found something in it. A quiet post isn't marked down for being new.

Usefulness is half of the shield: a genuinely useful post has a large share of its slop score taken off. Never all of it, so a useful post buried in bait can still be flagged.

counter-signal 3 of 3

Reader response

What readers actually did with the post: reactions, comments and reposts. This one isn't Jev's opinion. It's worked out from the counts shown under the post.

Effort counts more than taps

A comment costs someone minutes, and a repost puts the post in front of their whole network. Both count for far more than a one-tap reaction.

Hollow engagement is discounted

Hundreds of reactions with almost no comments or reposts is what an engagement pod or a cheap hook looks like. Once a post has lots of reactions, a thin comment-and-repost rate earns it less credit.

The first responses move it most

The scale is logarithmic. A post's first comments and reposts move the bar a lot; the thousandth reaction barely moves it. Filling it takes a very large, genuinely engaged audience.

Just posted. Nothing yet, so there's no bar. That's normal, not a mark against the post.
A handful of reactions, or one repost. A thin sliver.
A few dozen reactions and a few comments. A real response, but a small one.
Hundreds of reactions, almost no comments. Discounted as hollow, so it lands about where a much smaller post with real discussion does.
A real discussion: dozens of comments and reposts on top of the reactions.

These bars are illustrative. The exact weights can change as we tune them.

What it does to the score

Reader response is the other half of the shield, alongside usefulness. Together they can take a large share off a post's slop score, but never all of it.

Posts are scored when you first scroll near them and checked again as they pick up engagement, so a new post starts with an empty bar and can fill it later. Your own posts and drafts leave this bar out entirely: nobody has reacted to a draft, and your colour should reflect your writing, not your reach.

How it adds up

From eleven answers to one score, in order.

  1. 1Nine signsJev's answers on the Slopprint are weighted and combined into a slop score. A single sign standing out on its own is cut; shaky answers count for less.
  2. 2Sounds like a personTakes a little off.
  3. 3The shieldHalf usefulness, half reader response. Takes a share off the score, up to a cap, so no post is cleared by the shield alone.
  4. 4Human-typed?If the post reads as typed by a person, the score is softened a little. This step can only lower the score; being AI-assisted never adds to it.
  5. 5Your thresholdThe final score is compared with your sensitivity setting. Looks fine is left alone. In Highlight mode, Possibly gets a yellow outline and Likely a red one. In Hide mode, posts past your threshold fold away.

When it gets one wrong

Click the mop beside the post's “…” menu and vote No, Maybe or Probably. Your vote overrides the score in your feed, and everyone's votes feed into how we tune the questions. If a bar looks badly off, email hello@slopmop.lol with the post's link and which bar surprised you.

Email hello@slopmop.lol