Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Chicks Dig Me

I was reading Historiann's account, Welcome to Historimann.com, a NASCAR and law enforcement blog by and for menz, of analyzing her blog with various online tools and got quite a giggle out of it. I decided to give the same analytical tools on my own site and see what came up.

Gender Analyzer says there's an 80% chance that this blog is written by a man. I even went back to my October posts which were full of feminist writing, and scored a 77% chance of the blog being written by a man. Given that the topics were clearly feminist, what does that say about the way language is perceived in the absence of biological signs of the speaker? It is amusing to note that I was considered male in the Tolkien fandom for several months because my screen name was a weapon (Anglachel) and not a feminine Elven or Hobbit style name. What interests me more is that linguistic combinations (Key words? Locution? Grammar? Obscenities?) are considered masculine or feminine, and that somehow it is important to identify the gender of the person on the other end of the keyboard.

Somehow, my blog is assigned a value of $84,681.00. I'm disappointed. I thought it would be worth at least $84,681.89. Most of this is measured by the number of links in and out of the blog, which indicates traffic levels, which indicates potential ad revenue. Technorati scores are also factored in. Um, I think I'll keep my day job.

Typeanalyzer may or may not be measuring something real, but it sure know show to appeal to my ego:
INTP - The Thinkers

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications. They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

Yup, I know how to think. What I would be interested in knowing is whether "female" blogs get lower monetary scores and get categorized as the work of people who are "Feelers" rather than "Thinkers".

So, I went and tested the first chapter of my fanfiction novel, Hands of the King, on two differnt web sites. Same author as this blog, same story text, different information in the margins:

HotK on Romenna:

  • Gender analyzer: We guess http://www.romenna.net/stories/chapter_view.cfm?STID=129&SPOrdinal=1 is written by a man (59%), however it's quite gender neutral.
  • Worth $0.00 dollars (Tell that to Peter Jackson)
  • ENFP - The Inspirers: The curious and insightful type. They are especially attuned to possibilities that involves peoples potential. They usually have a lot of relations and are very perceptive and often unconventional. They enjoy working together with people and to make use of their enthusiasm. Lonely work and environments with many distractions make them scattered and often gloomy feeling overwhelmed withdraw further.

HotK on HASA:

  • Gender analyzer: We guess http://www.henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=1073&SPOrdinal=1 is written by a man (53%), however it's quite gender neutral.
  • Worth $0.00
  • Typelyze: Detected language Filipino. The only supported languages are English and Swedish. But stay tuned, we are expanding. (There is no Filipino on the page)

Hmm.

Anglachel

18 comments:

R. S. Martin said...

Well, it seems you're more of a man than I am. As the author of Pol Culture, it seems there's only a 72% possibility of my being male. Damn, having a penis just doesn't count as much as it used to.

My other blog, Dante's Divine Comedy, rated an 84% on the manliness meter. However, virtually all of it is my translations of the cantos in Dante's Inferno. My rewriting the maestro in English must be feminizing him somehow. If you take Pol Culture's score and do the math, Dante must have had at least a 96% masculinity factor in the original Italian. Who says poets are sissies?

Pol Culture is only worth a measly $2,822.70. Sigh. Well, at least my work on it marks me as a Thinker, too.

Thanks for the links. Those sites are a hoot.

Best,

RSM

OTE admin said...

I am even more of a man than you, Anglachel. I scored a 91.

Redstar said...

I bet that the women blogs = mommy blogs. Given you don't talk about children, relationships or shoes or husbands (hardly), you are a man. This is what I suspect anyway...

My blog is 93% likely to be written by a man. Damn.

However, it's not even worth $4k, so apparently I'm not bloviating nearly loud or often enough.

I am also an INTP!

Anonymous said...

I don't know whether to feel good or bad, but there is only a 54% possibility that I am male.

Other Lisa said...

Too bizarre for words. I didn't even finish reading this post before I had to go and experiment. I used the type analyzer on my blog. It was an ISTP. I've done the Meyers Briggs stuff a lot of times and have tested as an ISTP before, though on more detailed tests I was an INTP. Then I ran some of my fiction through it. ESFP and ISFP, depending on the piece. I kind of get that, because i like simple, sensory writing and hope that the larger issues are embedded in the work.

Gender-wise, the blog was 50/50, which sounds about right to me. I only tested one fiction excerpt (which had read ESFP on the type analyzer), and that came out 60% dude.

So does any of this mean anything? Or is it just further evidence of how arbitrarily we assign gender characteristics to people?

Koshem Bos said...

It doesn't appeal to my sense of humor. To me it just looks silly. With so much pretend science, pretend tradition and pretend smart people, we have more than our quota of shiny nothing.

Bob Harrison said...

Well, my blog is practically worthless so the male/female angle surely doesn't work here. It did get my gender right, but I'd bet anything that featured a bit of military news would get in the male category.

Anonymous said...

So does any of this mean anything? Or is it just further evidence of how arbitrarily we assign gender characteristics to people?

Mostly, I think it means that "gender" is a meaningless and artificial social construct that is a tool of patriarchy.

Anonymous said...

"We have strong indicators that http://camelsnose.wordpress.com is written by a man (91%)."

Oh, my.

As few months ago someone linked to me claiming I was a Jordanian woman. As far as I know, I am 100% female and American.

I write about the Middle East, Arabic language, gender issues, race, religion, my techie toys, and teaching ESL. And I do NOT go on talking about my "feelings" like myiq, hee, hee.

Anonymous said...

65 on the man-scale. Typealyzer tagged me as one of The Duty Fulfillers. Not sure how I feel about that, but...it's probably true.

ElleR said...

I "gendered out" as 84% male and "typed out" as INTP -- which is what usually turns up when I take the Myers Briggs. So, the gender analyzer needs a lot more work, while the type analyzer is true to type as defined by MB. Actually, the gender analyzer probably should find something else to analyze. I'd love to know what their criteria are. I bet there's a motherlode (fatherlode?) of sexism there.

Susan Kraemer said...

That gender thingie got me wrong too, I'm supposedly 81% likely male.

But the typaliser is very accurate, this nails my blogging (I also checked a few sites I write for, like http://ecoscraps.com and http://cleantechnica.com that have different "personalities" and indeed they were nailed instantly too.)

"The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it - often with a highly creative and imaginative touch.

They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be physically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity.

Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communicating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use concrete examples.

Since they are extremely good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone."

Too bad my blog is worth zero, though...

YAB said...

Thank you for the laugh. My blog scored 81% chance that it is written by a man. (No, I'm not.) There's a vote function on the site. 5817 votes for "correct" (53%), 5088 for wrong (47%) which suggests that they're doing not much better than chance.

As for Typeanlyzer. Well, I'm a Mechanic. Sounds kind of insulting (my apologies to all you car mechanics & engineers), but I just loved the last sentence:

"They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters. "

How can I say this? I could be a poster child for Coward of the Century. My idea of a nice vacation, could I afford it, would be a 5-Star hotel in some nice, safe place like Oslo or Vancouver.

R. S. Martin said...

Another fun site-analysis UTL is Blog Readability Test. Out of curiosity, I decided to submit some sites to this test. Here are the results:

--Glenn Greenwald: Genius
--Nouriel Roubini: Genius
--Pol Culture (me): College (postgrad)
--Anglachel: College (undergraduate)
--Paul Krugman (blog): High school
--The New York Times: High school
--Daily Kos: High school
--The Daily Howler (Bob Somerby): Junior high school
--Historiann: Junior high school
--The New Yorker: Junior high school
--Atrios: Elementary school
--Americablog (John Aravosis): Elementary school

There are some shockers there. I mean, the Daily Kos is written at a higher intellectual level than The New Yorker or Historiann? Are they kidding? However, I do think they pegged John Aravosis just right. I'm assuming a "Nursery school" option wasn't available.

Falstaff said...

Well, I'm 89% manly, undergraduate in my intellect and worth zippo (i.e., as much as GM, according to one Deutsche Bank analyst).

Unknown said...

Apparently my shiny nothing is gender neutral.

Motherlode said...

Hm. My almost-dormant blog, No More Apples, rated an INTP-The Thinkers in the typealyze. Not how my co-workers perceive me, but I'm good with it. I have a 54% chance of being a man, and my blog's reading level is College (Postgrad).

It's really hard for me to believe more than four years of blogging could be analyzed with any precision in the 2-3 seconds each test took.

opit said...

The level on my blog has changed over time ! I started off getting Genius and figured that was the pits for readability. Last time I checked Undergrad came up, which suits me fine.
The $$$ . Before WordPress archived oldephartteintraining my Technorati score of 207 was worth something like $125,000. Now my score is 18 and monetizing the blog still isn't much of a worry. But hey, if something can be done with that I might give it a go someday.