This Blog Post is Totally Unrelated to My Little Pony · 3:26am Apr 15th, 2014
What it is related to, is Harry Potter. And if you like Harry Potter, you might be interested in this.
So I was chatting with GhostOfHeraclitus and bookplayer tonight, and for various reasons the topic of Harry Potter (and specifically Hogwarts houses) came up. Well, as it happens back about seven or eight years ago, I developed a Sorting Hat program when I was working on a failed MUD project for Mugglenet. I built an executable application to demonstrate the code to the other admins on the project, and I shared it with books and Ghost, after we got into the inevitable argument about who belonged to which house.
At their semi-suggestion, I'm making this application public on Google Docs for anyone who'd like to download it. It was compiled using C++ on a Windows system, so I suspect it'll only work for those of you using Windows (or possibly Linux?)—sorry Macintosh folks. I know some people like to play around with these sorts of tests, and I've got a feeling you'll find this a lot more interesting than any of the other ones you may have run across.
A couple notes before I drop the link and head off for a couple hours to get dinner:
1. The question bank is randomized, with 25 possible questions (excluding the final one, which is the same in every instance of the test). This means you can take it multiple times and the experience will change somewhat each time.
2. Your house-specific scores will display at the top of the screen as you take the test, because I wanted an easy way to track how it was progressing in the demo version. This also means you'll be able to get a bit of a sense of how you're getting sorted as you go along. You can, of course, try to fudge your answers according to your preferences, but I strongly suggest trying to answer the questions as honestly as possible.
3. The scoring system is based on my own preconceptions of what the Hogwarts founders would have desired in their students, and may not reflect exactly what you think each house should value—so there's some subjectivity here. But I'm hoping my judgments weren't totally off base.
4. If you download the quiz application and take it, I'd ask that you please comment back here with the house you got (or PM me if you don't want the information public). Feel free to provide other comments, too, and to comment on this blog post as normal—but the big reason I'm making this public is because I want to get a feel for how it's handling people in a larger sample. If you're on Fimfiction and following me, that's already some important information about your personality, so this isn't going to be an unbiased sample, but I'd like more data on whether this is distributing people into the four houses at least somewhat equitably. The scoring system is set up in a way that I designed specifically to deal with that issue, but I've never had the chance to test it on a decent-sized sample.
Also, if you feel like sharing this around, please feel free to do so. I think I signed over the IP on it at some point, but the MUD project went under years ago. I don't know if it would have reverted to me or not (I'm not exactly an intellectual property lawyer), but it's not all that relevant to what I do with my life these days anyway, and it's probably not a big deal if it gets out in the wild where people won't credit me. Though credit is, of course, always appreciated.
Anyway, I hope at least a few of you enjoy this:
Before I answered the last question I had 68 Gryffindor, 102 Ravenclaw, 101 Slytherin, 89(?) Hufflepuff. It's a little awkward since I couldn't remember some of the info that would help me make a more informed decision on some of the questions.
Trial 2 is 48 Grif, 100 Raven, 93 Slyth, 98 Huff, but I changed a couple of answers for some repeated questions.
Ravenclaw. It was a close run vs. Hufflepuff, though, and I'm fairly sure the last answer decided it.
I ultimately got Ravenclaw, but I was getting Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff at almost identical scores, with Gryffindor close behind (and Slytherin at roughly half the score of Gryffindor). Depending on the score of the last question it might have decided my house among all except Slytherin.
As you know, I got Ravenclaw, even though I'm not very smart. But maybe I'm one of those Luna-type weirdo Ravenclaws...
Anyway, I made my husband take it, and he got Slytherin, though it was neck and neck with Gryffindor on the last question. He decided to be in Slytherin because "Gryffindor is the football team."
Also, he said this matched up with the Pottermore sorting for him.
Interesting app, I ended up in Slytherin. For the first little bit, points were about evenly split between G and S, with almost none in R or H, then a period where I got no points for G and enough to bring the other three about even, and at the end all four were within ten points of each other.
Questions were well put together. I very rarely do these types of quizzes, as most people who make them are very lazy and make one answer for each endpoint, which makes it very hard to answer honestly (if a system is obvious, it is very hard not to game it). The ambiguity and multiples facets of most answers here, and of course the delightful rhyming, made this quiz actually fun and interesting to complete. Well done.
Any particular reason you're resurrecting an old project?
Ravenclaw, with Gryffindor close behind.
Boyfriend and money questions are too narrow: for money, I wouldn't give a crap about the stolen money, and for boyfriend, there is not enough info to really choose a good answer. Study needs an 'I already learned it' option. Otherwise, it's a nice little program that ended up where I logically would: Ravenclaw.
Griffindor, and a close run vs Hufflepuff. If I'd chosen Hufflepuff on the choice question at the end, it certainly would've put me there. I chose Ravenclaw, not impacting the outcome.
Alas, I would like to think myself a Gryffindorian, but there is much Huffelpuffian in me, far too much to be running around late at night risking death and loss of points.
Just for amusement, I tried to game the system on a second run and get Ravenclaw. It worked, and Ravenclaw was by far the highest score at the end. However, on two questions, I accidentally chose massive gains of Hufflepuff points that didn't impress the Sorting Hat on my Ravenclawishness at all. I just don't know what went wrong.
So it looks like almost everyone is getting Ravenclaw, which is the problem I'm kind of worried about. It seems like more than half the people I give this to wind up in Ravenclaw, with the other three perhaps evenly balanced.
I don't know whether to think this is an effect of the biased sample or a problem with the test, though. I'll admit that the people I tend to associate with are going to overwhelmingly have Ravenclaw leanings...
I ended up in Griffendor at 102, but also 102 for Hufflepuff, 100 for Slytherin, and 92 for Ravenclaw.
I don't seem to sort very well.
Hmm. Can't use it the tablet, but I will be checking this out when I get home.
I forgot to write down the numbers, but I ended up in Hufflepuff. The sorting hat has rubbed me quite raw, as I'd far prefer dear Ravenclaw.
I'm very impressed by your rhymes, I think the numbers in the end were along the lines of Gryffindor: 99 Ravenclaw: 106 Slytherin: 101 and Hufflepuff: 109.
I feel I'm not good enough for the virtues of Hufflepuff so I picked the House of Smart-Asses in the final question and got them.
I got scores of Grif: 72 Raven: 100 Slyth: 103 Huff: 103 before the final question, the had didn't seem to know what I was other than not a protagonist. Honestly, it's easy. I'm Ravenpuff.
I picked Ravenclaw on the final question.
I actually think it's a good thing that scores were shown during the process. Sure, you can try and balance it, but the feedback makes it more fun. "Shoot, I just picked up a ton of Slytherin and Hufflepuff points! How is that even possible!"
Turns out it works great in wine, so Mac people can probably use that.
2011632
You're doing this survey on site dedicated to reading and writing and you probably attract people with an in-depth interest in the process with your analysis blogs. *Cough cough Sample bias*
I'm a Mac guy, but here are my results right before the last question:
Griffindor 92, Hufflepuff -18, Slytherclaw 26*e^2, Marysue 1,039,002
There, now you have an outlier to discard. That makes your data set legitimate! That is how math works.
2011845
Geeze. Are you glitching or fabricating?
I tried to game the system for Slytherin, and was neck-and-neck the entire time with Gryffindor. Slytherin by a 4 point margin at the house-choice question! I told it Gryffindor and it put me in Gryffindor. I feel like Harry Potter now. ("Please! Not Slytherin!")
Perhaps Slytherin and Gryffindor are not so different after all. This is a fun little toy. Thank you for sharing, Bradel.
Hmm, I didn't realize the scores would disappear after answering the final question. I got Ravenclaw on both attempts; second time my scores were Grif 75, Raven 107, Slyth 65, and Huff 71.
Hufflepuff, but barely over Ravenclaw.
(Though that's mostly because I find people who value intelligence over diligence tend to never actually use their knowledge)
I got Hufflepuff. Interestingly, it got a strong early lead (we are talking around 30 points ahead of the next in line), but Gryffindor of all houses started closing the gap strongly about halfway through. It ended up being pretty close(ish). (I wanted Ravenclaw, though.) Slytherin was dead last the whole way.
At the final question, Hufflepuff was something like 108, Gryff was a 97 ( I think ) Raven was an 85, and Slytherin was somewhere in the 60s. (Peace out man.)
Hufflepuff. I didn't realize that it would remove the scores at the end, but the end had Hufflepuff at 108, Gryffindor at 9x, Ravenclaw at 6x, and Slytherin in the single digits.
Well. I had G:84 R:87 S:99 H:100. I chose Slytherin to avoid Hufflepuff, which I felt was getting way too many points for no discernible reason, but if I hadn't known about the scores, it would have dumped me in Hufflepuff after I chose Ravenclaw as the the least minus. Now that I think about it though, the Hat did tell Harry what his top two options were before it sorted him, so even if the points are for debugging purposes, it might be good to have some feedback before that final question. (I realize you're not really developing this anymore)
Soo yeah. Interesting quiz show, and well done with the rhymes. Why aren't you writing more Zecora?
Well, I've run it twice now, and both times I ended up as a Ravenclaw (101 the first time, 103 the second), though at the end there, I had a slightly higher score as a Hufflepuff (90 the firest time, 107 the second). I wouldn't have minded being a Hufflepuff, but I'm okay with being a Ravenclaw.
I ended with Ravenclaw 107 (and sorted in Ravenclaw), Gryffindor and Hufflepuff in the low 90s (I didn't write the scores down...some Ravenclaw I am
), and Slytherin was at 47. Ravenclaw took an early lead, but Hufflepuff tied and even overtook for a bit when both were around 40. I chose Ravenclaw in the final question, though I was tempted to choose Slytherin
FOR SCIENCEto see how it would handle a preference for the house that is firmly in last place.2011632 I suspect that it's sampling bias. Try passing it around the football team!
...so that's where those Slytherin points came from.
If you still have the source code, I'm sure it can be ported to run on Mac OS X and Linux without too much trouble.
I got Hufflepuff, but I was pretty much four-way tied at ~95 up until the last two questions.
Got Ravenclaw; the test was very...interesting, considering I got very high scores in Griffindor, which I didn't expect.
Also, apparently I'm not at a all a Slitherin, which also surprised me.
Cool program! Also, why were three/two answers to each question? I mean, why those specific numbers?
2057578
Basically, I tried to come up with a reasonable slate of options for each question that would give people taking the test some real choices. I was balancing the answers in terms of how many points they'd give on each house, though, and that problem gets a little harder as the answer space increases. And I wanted to try to avoid doing four-answer questions as much as possible, because I figured it'd probably get interpreted by test-takers as, "Oh, there's one option corresponding to each house." Having fewer answer options, I hoped, would decrease the likelihood of people trying to meta the test and lead to them answering more honestly.