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Posted by todsacerdoti 13 hours ago

New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes(www.marginalia.nu)
604 points | 505 commentspage 4
egypturnash 11 hours ago|
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Don’t mind me, just skewing the results. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — results. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — results. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — results. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — results. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — results. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — results. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

marginalia_nu 11 hours ago||
Haha, the code counts the number of comments with em-dashes and similar, not the number of em-dashes total.

Could be an argument made for aggregating by user instead however, if some bots are found to be particularly active and skewing the data.

chrisjj 9 hours ago|||
> Haha, the code counts the number of comments with em-dashes and similar

Shhh!

:)

xnx 11 hours ago|||
Don’t —
xnx 11 hours ago|||
mind — me.
pimlottc 9 hours ago|||
Don’t — me bro
throw_rust 9 hours ago||
Sounds like a good slogan/motto for the AIpocalypse resistance to use.
bombcar 8 hours ago||
You missed the chance to use an em dash in your username!
lapcat 11 hours ago|||
The use of em dashes is a human right. I ask that people not discriminate against em-dash users—we should be a protected class—and I refuse to abandon them. Perhaps I’ll have one engraved on my tombstone. He died doing what he loved—dashing.
a4isms 11 hours ago|||
I encourage people to discriminate against me because I write like an educated African who works annotating AI training material.

Why not? I am a descendant of Africans. I am a mildly successful author by tech nerd standards. I was educated in the British Public School tradition, right down to taking Latin in high school and cheering on our Rugby* and Cricket teams.

If someone doesn't want to read my words or employ me because I must be AI, that's their problem. The truth is, they won't like what I have to say any more than they like the way I say it.

I have made my peace with this.

———

Speaking of Rugby, in 1973 another school's Rugby team played ours, and almost the entire school turned out to watch a celebrity on the other school's team.

His name was Andrew, and he is very much in the news today.

wongarsu 11 hours ago||||
En dash for the win – the British are right when it comes to this particular style difference
MisterTea 10 hours ago||||
Funny thing is I started using them in the last 5 or 6 years myself in place of commas where I wanted to interject some extra info. Of course I'm lazy and don't bother typing the actual em dash, I just use a regular dash. Now I feel gross using them because I don't want people thinking I turned my brain off.
bityard 11 hours ago|||
I have always used double-dashes instead of emdashes, and it annoys me when software "auto-corrects" them into emdashes. Moreso since emdashes became an AI tell.

I also see AIs use emdashes in places where parentheses, colons, or sentence breaks are simply more appropriate.

vlovich123 11 hours ago||
Wow what boring AI slop
AyanamiKaine 11 hours ago||
There is one thing I am the most scared off and that is believing a comment, video, picture is AI generated while it wasnt.

There is no real AI detection tool that works.

When we see something like emd-ashes its simply the average of the used text the models trained on. If you fall into one the averages of a model you basically part of the model ouput. Yikes.

seewhat 6 hours ago||
I’ve occasionally found myself wanting a comments filter with an account-creation date cutoff.

A -3dB cutoff might be >= 01/01/2020, to pick a round figure.

Yet I never browse https://news.ycombinator.com/classic

Perhaps a classic comment filter might work…

2c0m 7 hours ago||
My writing style is influenced a lot by what I read. Because I read a lot of LLM output I use more - phrasing in my writing.

I'm also influenced by the email style of my colleagues, books I'm reading, X, etc.

My literary diet really does show in my writing, so I'll keep up reading the classics to balance out all the LLM content :)

vardalab 4 hours ago||
My STT is cleaned up using llm and it often likes those dashes. I let it be because I could not care less.
atleastoptimal 5 hours ago||
It would be trivial to make a HN comment agent that avoids all the usual hallmarks of AI writing. Mere estimations of bot activity based on character frequency would likely underestimate their presence.
dalemhurley 8 hours ago||
Several factors: 1. Em dashes are common use in the Queens English

2. People with dyslexia and dysgraphia can more easily interact online

3. People who speak a primary language other than English can more easily interact online

The last 2 options mean people who previously would have been more reluctant to participate now have less of a barrier.

So while there may be AI generated content, we should just assume it is all negative.

marginalia_nu 5 hours ago|
I don't think this explains why new accounts use EM-dashes with a 10x higher prevalence than the baseline established by baseline.

I also don't think the first point is correct at all.

andrewmthomas87 10 hours ago||
My truth is that the LLM usage of em-dashes doesn’t seem excessive. If anything, the kind of text generated by LLMs (somewhat informal, expressive) calls for em-dashes at a higher frequency.
bobomonkey 10 hours ago||
I had a past life of drumming up community comments for engagment: The only thing that's changed is that humans are getting lazy and using AI. Fake comments have always been a thing.
cloverich 10 hours ago|
I'm sure you can't share details but would be cool to hear more about it generally speaking, what worked and not etc. Especially if it involved HN.

Our company is being attacked rn in tech media and at least some of it, gut feeling wise, seems obviously sponsored / promoted by competitors. I know that's not surprising, but never watched it happen from this side before.

bobomonkey 7 hours ago||
The key was to present what looked like a lively debate. The dirty trick was to have the "bad side" over state the position horribly. For example, to make Republicans look bad we'd start having their fake personas use subtle racism.
bee_rider 11 hours ago|
700 is actually a pretty good sample size unless you are looking at some tiny crosstab, or there’s some skew (which you won’t naively scale your way out of anyway).

It is also interesting to note that the comparison is between recent comments and recent comments by new users. So, I guess this would take care of the objection that em-dashes (a perfectly fine piece of punctuation) have just been popularized by bots, and now are used more often by humans as well.

Maybe there is a bot problem. Seems almost impossible to fix for a site like this…

marginalia_nu 11 hours ago|
I think what a larger sample size would do would be to help capture changes over time. Humans tend to be more active certain times of days, whereas bots don't tend to do that.
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