The Gender [sic] Genie purports to know!!

http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

Those accuracy statistics are simply amazing!

i just did a quick cut and paste job from information and announcements

wow- female
dodyskin-female
faldage-male
sjmaxq-girly girl girl
whitman- the gender genie has no idea 65/65
dxb-female
belligerentyouth-female
jmh-male
rhuby-male

how'd it do people?

Exactly 50-50. Nice bit of research there, Dody. (I'm trying not to LMAO at the genie's problem figuring out WO'N)

oh -- and how does max rate "girly girl girl" when the other three are merely "females"?? Enquiring minds need to know...

Oh, man--the "d" discussion just had me laughing; now, y'all're makin' my stomach hurt! Ow, ow!

Ahhh, but aren't the results skewed by your choice of text?
Just askin'
Anyway it got me right... thanks for that as I had no idea how to do it!

aren't the results skewed

The official results on the page itself as of my last were:

Am I right?

yes 28375 (50.64%)
no 27654 (49.36%)
56029 total responses since August 15, 2003

Pity the genie doesn't include the category metrosexual: that might explain some of the confusion.

Hmm, I don't know about this algorithm. below are several text samples, some from famous works of literature, and the answer provided by the algorithm.

I like football. female

We came. We saw. We conquered. female


Give me liberty, or give me death. female

Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this land a new nation. "Uh, the Gender Genie has no idea!"

Shake it up baby, now. Twist and shout. You know you look so good. You really got me going now. female

[a long passage from "The Snows of Killmanjaro"] was entered female

Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. male

Jane EyreThere was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner— something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”

“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked. male

I took samples from information and announcements because people tend to write longer posts there overall and it was quicker to sample from one place. I called max a girly girl girl because he or she is.

Fascinating.

The algorithm looks for ten markers, five additive and five subtractive. It totals up the points from the markers and compares that to the number of words in the sample. If you have more points from the markers than words in the sample you're male, otherwise you're female. So, if you don't use any of the markers you default to female.


http://snurl.com/25lm

Fascinating.

girl

I like this game

>I called max a girly girl girl because he or she is.

Was the emphasis on [I to indicate that the assessment of my sex was made by you, rather than by the website? Every passage of text I entered had me listed as female. I couldn't get it to give as a result, "girly girl girl", so I'm guessing that was an embellishment on your part. You'll be pleased to know that you were just as wrong as the non-sentient algorithm used by the website, and that's its excuse.

Was the emphasis on I to indicate that the assessment of my sex was made by you, rather than by the website? Every passage of text I entered had me listed as female. I couldn't get it to give as a result, "girly girl girl", so I'm guessing that was an embellishment on your part. You'll be pleased to know that you were just as wrong as the non-sentient algorithm used by the website, and that's its excuse

Scored you as male on that one Mr Quordlepleen.

Well, that's nice. At least that helps the wonderfully elegant algorithm maintain its 50-50 success rate. (Female)

I can't help but think that the algorithm as published is but a pale shadow of itself.

chapter one of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ---> female

*sigh*

>sigh

female.

So computers haven't figured out the differences between men and women yet. Ha! At least they're not ahead of us there.

I entered five passages each from an online experiment in writing that I am participating in. I'm 4 parts female, 1 part male. The other female participant is also 4 parts female, 1 part male. The action dude writer is 3 parts male, 2 parts female. The other male writer is 4 parts male, 1 part female. That almost meets the 80% projected accuracy, dunnit?

almost meets the 80% projected accuracy

There's so much uncertainty in the on-line version.

A) We have to count on people being honest when they tell the Genie whether it was right.

2) It's incredibly easy to fake the Genie out once you learn the algorithm.

A) might even out but 2) is a real concern and Þ), which went without saying, is going to skew the results all by its lonesome.

Was the emphasis on [I to indicate that the assessment of my sex was made by you, rather than by the website? Every passage of text I entered had me listed as female. I couldn't get it to give as a result, "girly girl girl", so I'm guessing that was an embellishment on your part.

I was just highlighting ( mm, love the look of that word) the keywords the I thought the genie used. Looking closer at the website ( or more truthfully, reading Faldages explanation) I see I highlighted (liking that more and more, all those consonants, like 'stretch') the wrong things, it should go like this

I took samples from information and announcements because people tend to write longer posts there overall and it was quicker to sample from one place. I called max a girly girl girl because he or she is.

'k? sorry max

I'm astonished just how close the thing comes to defining "one-half." Today it gives the accuracy percentages as 50.01% correct, 49.99% incorrect.

"Blame the scientists. I didn't write the algorithm!"

8/31/03

Finally got around to this, AnnaS...I put in some lyrics from my *baseball song:

Well, the first time I got my fingers on that good ol' cowhide,
The first time that I swang a Louisville,
I knew why I was put here,
What my life was all about,
Yeah, at seven, I was sure of every thrill!

Female. Yeah, I know girls play baseball, but.

Wunnerful!

First two stanzas of Barb-Wire Bill by Robert Service:

At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim,
When Bill Mc'Gee he says to me: "We've got to do it, Jim.
We've got to make Fort Liard quick. I know the river's bad,
But, oh! the little woman's sick . . . why! don't you savvy, lad?"
And me! Well, yes, I must confess it wasn't hard to see
Their little family group of two would soon be one of three.
And so I answered, careless-like: "Why, Bill! you don't suppose
I'm scared of that there `babbling brook'? Whatever you say -- goes."

A real live man was Barb-wire Bill, with insides copper-lined;
For "barb-wire" was the brand of "hooch" to which he most inclined.
They knew him far; his igloos are on Kittiegazuit strand.
They knew him well, the tribes who dwell within the Barren Land.
From Koyokuk to Kuskoquim his fame was everywhere;
And he did love, all life above, that little Julie Claire,
The lithe, white slave-girl he had bought for seven hundred skins,
And taken to his wickiup to make his moccasins.

Female.

(full poem text here:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?I2F7323C5)

[Edit: and with this sample I had the pleasure of driving the "no" quotient over 50%! ]

It is rather a lot far-fetched.

I fed it KJV Genesis chap 1 and Ruth chap 1. Male and Female, respectively. FWIW