Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Gender-me?

No idea how this website works, but it analyzes blogs and attempts to determine whether they are written by a man or a woman by somehow comparing the writing to a control-group of male and female authored blogs.

So I decided to give the ol' Frying Pan a look-see. The result?

"We guess http://das-frog.blogspot.com is written by a woman (58%), however it's quite gender neutral."

Nice, I rather like being gender-neutral.

Hmmm... I wonder what it has to say about the girliest blog I read?

"We think http://winnipegprincess.blogspot.com/ is written by a man (64%)."

Wow, okay, that was not what I was expecting... Either Princess of the Universe is keeping something from us, or their algorithm could use a little tweaking. I'm guessing it's the latter.

Okay, how about a blog actually written by a man?

"We have strong indicators that http://redactedblog.blogspot.com is written by a man (94%)."

Dan will be relieved.

Peter, on the other hand, appears to be in trouble.

"We guess http://peterdewolf.wordpress.com is written by a woman (56%), however it's quite gender neutral."

[Pause while Froggy feeds address after address into the machine, looking for a solidly female response to mirror the 94% male given to Dan]

I am perplexed. The highest certainty of female authorship I could encounter from my blog roll was Molly, coming in at 71%, followed closely by Deutlich at 68%.

But many of my other bloggy ladies showed up with startlingly high percentage certainty of being male... so either there's a whole lot of fakery going on out there, or this algorithm is decidedly warped.

I'm guessing it's the algorithm, as I've met Ashley, and she is most certainly not a man, despite this website's 78% percent certainty that she is.

So what is it that constitutes "masculine" writing? A good vocabulary and grasp of basic grammar? Is that why so many of my girls are getting labeled as boys?

This whole thing just has me a bit confused. Go check it out yourself. What does a stranger's algorithm say about you?

14 comments:

Unknown said...

my thought: the damn thing was programmed by men

Unknown said...

http://newyorkcitygirl.kaywa.com/
99% girlish
and yes, i simply googled it, so no, i dont even know what this blog is about

Anonymous said...

Why am I not surprised it found me to be girly? :)

Anonymous said...

Sigh. I swear I'm a girl! 78% man? I mean my last post was about MAKEUP. The one before that, PMS! I mean, how much more girly can you get?! Siiiigh.

Anonymous said...

Sigh. I swear I'm a girl! 78% man? I mean my last post was about MAKEUP. The one before that, PMS! I mean, how much more girly can you get?! Siiiigh.

the frog princess said...

Well the make-up post bumped you down to 77%. Maybe if you talk about kitties and dresses and lipstick everyday for the next 77 days, you'll get to be a girl :)

Unknown said...

k , test done, wrote some shit, and i'm 9 tenth of a man.

Still waiting for the tears of joy, my glands are out of shape i guess

B said...

I am SOOOOOOOOO amused by this it's ridiculous.

Princess of the Universe said...

Thank for checking it for me....
That is hilarious. How the hell could I make my blog any more girly???

xo

Elizabeth said...

I had never heard of that before! My blog ended up being 53% female, but mostly gender neutral. Interesting!

Princess Pointful said...

78% man right here.
Woot.
Except I'm not.

Tina Poe said...

Hmmm, my blog makes me out to be 83% manly? LIES ALL LIES!

Eleni Zoe said...

51% male for me. But gender neutral. I honestly thought it would come out more girly.

thanks for sharing, its so much fun!

Z said...

Guess I'm 68% of a man... Hmmm... I'd have thought I might be more gender neutral