reading time

 reading time  is a feature of posts (usually articles) that indicates the expected amount of time (typically in minutes) that it would take to read the post.

Why
Knowing roughly how long it will take to read an article will help a reader decide whether they have the time to read an article now or whether they should save it for later.

Ben Werdmuller
has been indicating reading time on his werd.io articles since ????-??-?? (date and citation needed).
 * need example article (first article with reading time?)

Tantek
undefined has tried posting an article with reading time on 2016-02-17:
 * http://tantek.com/2016/048/b1/going-silo-private-prefer-indieweb

Rob Weychert
shows reading time on posts in list views (but not on permalinks) since v6 of his website (2017-09-11). Previously (v5) he showed word counts.

Jamie Tanna
shows reading time on list views and in actual posts, on https://www.jvt.me, as well as on Twitter sharing cards.

capjamesg
shows reading time on his articles. He uses a Jekyll front matter variable to calculate the reading time for each post.

Silo Examples

 * Medium displays reading time on Medium posts.

Bad reaction to being told

 * https://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2016-02-18/line/1455812120724 "don't tell me how fast I read"

First paragraph annoyance

 * https://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2016-02-18/line/1455805042207 "I'm mostly annoyed when the first paragraph of a post in my feed reader is '3 minutes reading time'"

Does not reflect actual time

 * https://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2016-02-18/line/1455827541363 "maybe I don't like the '3 minutes reading time' thing because it never actually reflects the time I spend reading articles"
 * Everyone reads at different paces and there is no way to calculate each individual's reading time
 * says "This article takes approximately X minutes to read." This lets a user know that there may be a margin of error around the reading time of a post.

Not useful seems arbitrary

 * https://indiewebcamp.com/irc/2016-02-18/line/1455827821693 "i don't find that useful because I don't know what assumptions the author is making about reading times, so the time listed is pretty arbitrary from my perspective"