Monday, November 30, 2009

Blog personalities

I'm sure pretty much everyone has heard of the MBTI. I've taken the full test three times, and each time I've come out as an INTJ. Reading INTJ profiles makes me realize that I am so an INTJ. Why am I sharing this today? Well I came across this site called the Typealyzer where you can type in the address of a blog. What happens next is quoted from the site:

"This text analysis gives a snapshot of the persona by looking at the communication style of the text in the moment it was written. Looking on the results over a period of time will, however, tell you something about how a blogger “normally” prefer to communicate, but it might still be a blog that more reflects a role than how the blogger feels inside."

Hmmm... interesting, eh? I'm not sure exactly how it works, but here is what got me. I typed in my blog address, and I got back ESFP.

ESFP - The Performers

"The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.

They enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions."

Anyone else notice that ESFP is the opposite of INTJ in every sense? Isn't that funny? Am I communicating in a style very opposite to my personality... or er something like that? Well this got me curious as to what personalities other blogs I read come back as.

Fellow ESFPs - Megs and Jong at Forbearance, River at A High Latency Life, Averna at Nerf This Druid, Pugnacious Priest. Wouldn't you know, our blogs are all performers!

Jess at Pretty in Plate, Bell at 4Haelz, Beru at Falling Leaves and Wings are:

ESTP - The Doers

"The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities.

The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time."

Keeva at Tree Bark Jacket, Tam and Chastity at Righteous Orbs, and Gevlon at Greedy Goblin are:

ISTP - The Mechanics

"The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment and are highly skilled at seeing and fixing what needs to be fixed. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters."

Leafy at Leafshine and Lissanna at Restokin are:

ESTJ - The Guardians

"The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they have made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things.

The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.

Miss Medicina, Mikata at Resto-Melee, and Amber at I Like Bubbles are:

ISFP - The Artists

"The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.

They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living."

Niniel at Swiftmend is:

ENTP - The Visionaries

"The charming and trend savvy type. They are especially attuned to the big picture and anticipate trends. They often have sophisticated language skills and come across as witty and social. At the end of the day, however, they are pragmatic decision makers and have a good analytical ability.

They enjoy work that lets them use their cleverness, great communication skills and knack for new exciting ventures. They have to look out not to become quitters, since they easily get bored when the creative exciting start-up phase is over."

Firewood at Tree Haelz, Larisa and Elnia at Pink Pigtail Inn are:

INTP - The Thinkers

"The logical and analytical type. They are especially 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."

Graylo at Gray Matter and Jacemora at Druid of the Moon are:

ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers

"The responsible and hardworking type. They are especially attuned to the details of life and are careful about getting the facts right. Conservative by nature they are often reluctant to take any risks whatsoever.

The Duty Fulfillers are happy to be let alone and to be able to work in their own pace. They know what they have to do and how to do it."

Anyone else surprised by their blog communication type? More info on how this works here.

18 comments:

  1. Oh...how interesting! My blog is also quite different than how I score on those tests personally! (If I recall, I'm an INFJ).

    Neat post!

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  2. Hehe, indeed, it put Dreambound as an ISTP (Mechanic)... I'm an INFP myself. It's typing the blog, though, and it's content, rather than the person behind it. Many people (myself included) don't put EVERYTHING up on their blog, opting instead to keep the more personal or "off-topic" stuff to themselves and their guild forums... or they decide the guides sections are saturated, so they don't put that stuff up themselves.

    Very interesting :) Wonder if Elnia has seen this typealizer?

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  3. Oh, try this: put various archives links or search-label links into the typealizer; it can have different results based on what page of your blog it surveys :) My guides, personality surveys, and talents stuff it put as INTP, Mods were ESTP, macros were ISTP, "fun stuff" was ESFP...

    People do often adopt different communication styles when typing about different subjects :)

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  4. Both Galertruby and Maurice's got rated as ESFP. Maurice I gets, but I always saw Galertruby as more of a ISTP kind of lad.

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  5. @Beru: I know! Seriously, the type of the performer is sooo not me in real life. So its interesting to me that is how I am communicating through this blog.

    @Kae: Ya, I figured if you put in different types of posts, you might get back different types. Probably more relevant for you bloggers who actually blog about guides, macros, tips etc etc as opposed to me who has been pretty random lately on this blog.

    @Ratshag: Just because you can't understand Galertruby does not mean he is introverted! He is extroverted through all of this Garghs!

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  6. Kae. Larisa just sent it to me. I'll take a close look at it but I do think it's interesting because Larisa and I are both INTJs. I suspect it's the writing medium here that influences the "P".

    BTW, welcome to the INTJ family Keredria. Nice to see another druid tree join the ranks.

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  7. Yeah, there are some serious problems with this program. Clearly one major problem is the J/P pole. Judging in writing usually is demonstrated by *organization* and there is nothing in this analyzer that I can tell that evaluates organization, just diction. So it will tend to default to the P side because writing tends to be a descriptive medium.

    Also, as far as I can tell it doesn't evaluate graphics or pictures which matter a great deal as well in communicating type for some bloggers.

    In short, I think this is an interesting attempt but one that at the end of the day results in more confusion than clarity.

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  8. Ok it's interesting I put my personal blog into there and was a Perfomer as well. I put my WARHAMMER ONLINE blog in there I'm a do'er

    Cool post I had fun reading it, but on the Typealyzer website what's with the pic of the little girl...cause it looks nothing like me.

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  9. The blog is INTP. The person at the keyboard is an ISFJ. Opposites, aside from the introversion. Strange, indeed...

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  10. @Elnia: Yep, most of the blogs came back as Ps, though Leafy, Restokin, Gray Matter, and Druid of the Moon came back as Js. I wonder what it is about the text in the blog that was analyzed as J as opposed to P?

    @River: Maybe you have multiple personalities? :p

    @Forreststump:#1, cutest name evah! #2, ya, it may not really work. But I find the idea that how you are in real life may be different than how you communicate across your blog to be an interesting idea.

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  11. @Keredria.

    It's difficult to say without examining the program closely. There are just too few data points to look at.

    I don't want to say that I think this programmatic type of approach is worthless. There is truth to the fact that choices in diction reflect personality types.

    But I discount this specific program because (1) the author does not reveal the obvious bias in the approach and that tells me he/she doesn't really understand the MBTI. (2) His assertion that the program reflects an individual's persona (as opposed to their personality) also tells me that he/she doesn't really have a clue as to what those terms actually mean in psychoanalytics.

    As someone that has used the MBTI in their professional life I'm extremely leery of pop psychology experts. The MBTI is a useful tool in certain situations and that's all it is.

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  12. Tee hee. After doing some digging I have a better idea how it works.

    It uses four APIs judging each word on the four polarities. The J/P polarites is here.

    http://www.uclassify.com/browse/prfekt/Myers-Briggs-Lifestyle

    It judges some words like 'you' and 'me' as neutral. Then there is 'it' and 'love' which are classified as judging. 'Long' is classified as perceiving.

    The whole thing is just a head scratcher. It seems like it's designed to appeal to people who trust anything spat out of a computer program. I think any relevance to real MBTI scores is coincidence.

    I'd really like to know here he got the database though. I've never heard of the dictionary being broken down by MBTI type this way. If he did it himself OMG :-0

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  13. Wait, the program said that I am "not fond of many words"?

    WUT

    I have to bold random sentences in my posts so that people have bookmarks for the massive wall of text!!!

    This was pretty clever, thanks for sharing!

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  14. Hmmmmm both Cass and I are ESFPs however our blog is an ESTJ I'm so excited that a program thinks I'm organised!!!!

    I think I'll play around and see if my articles have a different personality type to Cass's now :)

    This was very interesting - cheers for sharing :)

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  15. I shared a blogpersonality with Gevlon?!!

    *cries*

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  16. @Tamarind: Personality assessment makes for strange bedfellows.

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  17. Hello! I just saw this post (a bit late ^^)

    My blog got ENTP from this program and when I've done the test personally I've gotten INTP and sometimes INTJ so the J/P part is somewhere in the middle.

    I do recognize the traits of ENTP though, I guess I can be a bit like that when I discuss something I'm good at, the subject melts down the introversion sometimes. The part about using language skills and analytical ability at work is spot on. It was fun to read about! :)

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  18. I love the idea of Typealyzer, but I really had to laugh when it mistyped my INTJ page. I mean if it can't get that one right...haha.

    Maybe it just needs a little tweaking. But it's a great idea that makes you think nonetheless.

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