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

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358 points tkgally | 3 comments | 30 Aug 25 03:40 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

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

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cookiengineer ◴[30 Aug 25 05:46 UTC] No.45072164[source]▶
How can I get to the top of the leaderboard?

Is the amount of em dashes counted or the comments that have at least one em dash inside them?

You know, I am asking for...science(?).

I also wanted to point out that these could be Kantonese/Mandarin/Japanese/SouthEast Asian users that use their local keymapping software because a lot of them use the idiom symbols (e.g. the dot character, too) when they switch to the English keymaps.

Check out how laptops usually look like over there, a lot of manufacturers build that right into the firmware.

replies(1): >>45072174 #
1. nodja ◴[30 Aug 25 05:47 UTC] No.45072174[source]▶
Go back in time and post with em—dashes.
replies(1): >>45072181 #
2. cookiengineer ◴[30 Aug 25 05:49 UTC] No.45072181[source]▶
Okay, so step one is to buy a DeLorean. Got it.
replies(1): >>45072848 #
3. throwup238 ◴[30 Aug 25 08:08 UTC] No.45072848[source]▶
There are flux capacitor conversion kits now.