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New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

marginalia.nu

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Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#431

Post by Yizahi »

mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

Were you using them as a replacement for a comma--without spaces on both sides of the em-dash--like how I did just now? If no, you are safe from being mistaken for an LLM program. Honestly, while it is a legitimate punctuation rule, I've never seen a human on the internet to write like that. But LLMs do it constantly, whenever they generate long enough sentences.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#432

Post by tuetuopay »

pronik wrote: post #427

Our life has become so dumb in certain ways. There are people who invested heavily in learning their mother or a foreign language, its spelling, grammar, syntax and idiosyncrasies, like when to use an em-dash, an Oxford comma, a semicolon, an ellipsis -- these smart educated people now seriously deliberate whether using wrong dashes and adding a spelling mistake or two would be a good way to prove you are a human (I…

I felt it quite a while back (more than 10 years ago), when, in high school, I learnt LaTeX and discovered Beamer. I naturally proceeded to make all of my presentations with it, including the rehearsal for a big competitive French exam. The person reviewing the presentation advised me to dirty it up a bit, otherwise nobody would believe that my father wasn’t a PhD researcher that did the work for me.

That was a bit saddening honestly. I kept the presentation as-is as I didn’t knew how to willfully screw up a Beamer presentation, and I would not touch PowerPoint (fortunately the final jury believed me).

Cheating had always been an issue before LLMs, but now we’re back to the same old tricks: just make sure to add a mistake or two to hide you copied the homework on your neighbor. It’s a shame because I kinda like learning the subtleties of foreign languages, and as a non-native English speaker, it’s quite rewarding when going online!

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#433

Post by tuetuopay »

mghackerlady wrote: post #365
pvtmert wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started making deliberate grammar and spelling mistakes in professional context. Not like I have a perfect writing anyway, but at least I could prove that it was self-written, not an auto-generated slop. (Could be self-written slop though :) This applies not only work-stuff itself also to the job-applications/cv/resume and cover-letters.

unrelated but I've never understood how to put a smiley at the end of parenthetical sentences (which comes up surprisingly often for me since I use smileys a lot and also like using parentheses). Just the smiley as an end parentheses (like this :) feels off but adding another parentheses (like this :) ) makes it look like it should be nested which causes problems since I also tend to nest parenthetical sentences (lik…

Use dashes and the problem goes away! Well, you gain the LLM witch-hunt, but heh, no free lunch.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#434

Post by kanzure »

mikenew wrote: post #326

This feels like an existential threat to HN, and to the general concept of anonymous online discourse. Trust in the platform is foundational, and without it the whole thing falls down. Requiring proof of identity is the only solution I can think of, despite how unappealing it is. And even then, you'll still have people handing their account over to an LLM. I really struggle to imagine a way around it. It could be tha…

Another option instead of using identity is to use proof of work or hashcash such that anyone who thinks a comment is valuable can use some hash rate to upvote it. It doesn't matter how the content was generated, only that someone thought it was important, and you can independently verify this by checking how much hash effort went into hashing for that comment. This also does not require any identity either.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#435

Post by dylan604 »

pvtmert wrote: post #352
marssaxman wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

I started making deliberate grammar and spelling mistakes in professional context. Not like I have a perfect writing anyway, but at least I could prove that it was self-written, not an auto-generated slop. (Could be self-written slop though :) This applies not only work-stuff itself also to the job-applications/cv/resume and cover-letters.

I'm trademarking the improper use of it/it's, there/their/they're, were/we're, etc as a sign of my humanity. Apple's typocorrect is doing it for me anyways.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#436

Post by ceroxylon »

d4mi3n wrote: post #50

I'm still salty that I can't use em-dashes anymore for fear of my writing being flagged as AI generated. Been using them for years—it's just `alt+shift+-` on a Mac keyboard and I find them more legible in many fonts compared to the simple dash on the typical numpad. It's so sad to me that good typographical conventions have been co-opted by the zeitgeist of LLMs.

That was my reaction when LLMs first started getting "good"

I turned to my friend and said "They've co-opted the structure of effective language!"

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#437

Post by SpaceManNabs »

marssaxman wrote: post #301
mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

I got similar accusations recently on reddit lol. Just because i am used to formatting markdown i like to format some of my reddit comments. i have no idea how to avoid the accusations besides typing less formally except by typing like thisss.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#438

Post by dylan604 »

Yizahi wrote: post #431
mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

Were you using them as a replacement for a comma--without spaces on both sides of the em-dash--like how I did just now? If no, you are safe from being mistaken for an LLM program. Honestly, while it is a legitimate punctuation rule, I've never seen a human on the internet to write like that. But LLMs do it constantly, whenever they generate long enough sentences.

I've used the -- with no spaces in posts to HN multiple times.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#439

Post by Animats »

marssaxman wrote: post #301
mrandish wrote: post #272

Prior to the rise of LLM-written posts and the natural reaction of hair-trigger suspicion, I used to em and en dash fairly often in posts on HN. No reason really other than being a bit of a typography geek who happens to have always used dashes in casual writing instead of semicolons. So when I was setting up a modifier-key keyboard layer with AHK many years ago I put the em dash on modifier+dash just because I could…

My teenager recently asked me why I write like a chatbot, apparently unaware that some human beings prefer to write in complete sentences with attention to details like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalization, and that LLMs were trained on this sort of writing. This makes me think of the fad where people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame, because it somehow connotes authenticity. I'm sure some…

> people on youtube will hold a microphone up in frame,

Now you need a really big microphone, something that looks like it was built in 1952.

Re: New accounts on HN more likely to use em-dashes

#440

Post by escapeteam »

elevation wrote: post #184
d4mi3n wrote: post #50

I'm still salty that I can't use em-dashes anymore for fear of my writing being flagged as AI generated. Been using them for years—it's just `alt+shift+-` on a Mac keyboard and I find them more legible in many fonts compared to the simple dash on the typical numpad. It's so sad to me that good typographical conventions have been co-opted by the zeitgeist of LLMs.

LLM fatigue is real. It's not just em-dash — it's the overall tone of the writing that clues people in. But if your viewpoints and approach are unique, your typesetting won't raise suspicion of machine-generation, except in the most dull of readers. Just be you and it will be fine. If you'd like more tips on writing I'd be happy to help.

You‘re absolutely correct!
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