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

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358 points tkgally | 1 comments | 30 Aug 25 03:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.229s | 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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ThatMedicIsASpy ◴[30 Aug 25 06:24 UTC] No.45072356[source]▶
I have started using triple dots as on Linux I can get them with Alt Gr + .

A lot of symbols can be accessed with Alt Gr compared to Windows

replies(2): >>45072500 #>>45072731 #
notpushkin ◴[30 Aug 25 06:58 UTC] No.45072500[source]▶
Please don’t... Adding ellipsis as a separate character was a huge mistake, because it doesn’t work well:

- you can’t make a ?.. or !.. with it

- the spacing between the dots is awful in a lot of fonts

- it is hideous in monospace

- typing ellipsis properly is a very easy gesture (triple-tap the dot key), arguably easier than Alt Gr + . (depending on the keyboard)

replies(4): >>45072546 #>>45072554 #>>45072667 #>>45072813 #
1. mitthrowaway2 ◴[30 Aug 25 08:01 UTC] No.45072813[source]▶
-it takes three keystrokes to type, but only one backspace to delete, which is confusing!