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Show HN: Hacker News em dash user leaderboard pre-ChatGPT

(www.gally.net)
358 points tkgally | 8 comments | 30 Aug 25 03:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.853s | source | bottom

The use of the em dash (—) now raises suspicions that a text might have been AI-generated. Inspired by a suggestion from dang [1], I created a leaderboard of HN users according to how many of their posts before November 30, 2022—that is, before the release of ChatGPT—contained em dashes. Dang himself comes in number 2—by a very slim margin.

Credit to Claude Code for showing me how to search the HN database through Google BigQuery and for writing the HTML for the leaderboard.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053933

1. zdw ◴[30 Aug 25 03:58 UTC] No.45071806[source]▶
I applaud this data. But how are people actually creating an em-dash in the "add comment" box? Some non-obvious OS-level shortcut?
replies(6): >>45071821 #>>45071823 #>>45071832 #>>45071860 #>>45071911 #>>45077921 #
2. ronsor ◴[30 Aug 25 04:02 UTC] No.45071821[source]▶
Compose key, alt key codes, WinKey + . on Windows—there are many ways. It's also easy to do on most phone keyboards by holding down the hyphen key for more options.
3. jer0me ◴[30 Aug 25 04:03 UTC] No.45071823[source]▶
Option Shift Hyphen on macOS
4. acheron ◴[30 Aug 25 04:04 UTC] No.45071832[source]▶
You type -- and it autocorrects on iOS.
replies(1): >>45072193 #
5. dullcrisp ◴[30 Aug 25 04:12 UTC] No.45071860[source]▶
document.querySelector("textarea").value += '—' in the Javascript console.
6. necubi ◴[30 Aug 25 04:23 UTC] No.45071911[source]▶
On macOS it’s easy—opt+shift+-.

The em-dash used to be a slightly snooty way for Mac users to announce themselves. Sad that the polarity of perception has reversed.

I’ve been typing em-dashes since I got my first MacBook in 2006 and I’m not going to let the AI companies take my beautiful punctuation away from me.

7. 9dev ◴[30 Aug 25 05:52 UTC] No.45072193[source]▶
You can also long-press the dash key on the iOS keyboard.
8. Kungfuturtle ◴[30 Aug 25 20:54 UTC] No.45077921[source]▶
I've long been a fan of the em dash—one of the first things I did when I migrated back from OSX to Windows was to set up an AutoHotKey function to map <Alt>+<-> to an em dash.