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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: 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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PUSH_AX ◴[30 Aug 25 06:40 UTC] No.45072409[source]▶
It might be more fun to see users who’s emdash usage increased after the release.
replies(6): >>45072489 #>>45072739 #>>45072901 #>>45073019 #>>45073342 #>>45074025 #
Moru ◴[30 Aug 25 06:56 UTC] No.45072489[source]▶
Maybe the HN crowd is the wrong group for such statistics, a higher percentage here probably knows how to use their keyboard and OS.
replies(4): >>45072523 #>>45072595 #>>45072971 #>>45073083 #
1. perihelions ◴[30 Aug 25 08:54 UTC] No.45073083[source]▶
I remember participating in a small thread on how to type an em-dash, on different OS's. It was in March 2023, so before the em-dash meme had started—it was an innocent question then.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35118338#35118598