I've never, ever, ever ever ever, seen anybody complain about spelling mistakes in a comment here. As long as you can understand the comment, people respond to it.
And why would you want to "improve your writing" for an HN comment? I think people here value raw authenticity more than polished writing.
I say this on behalf of all of my neurospicy friends… sometimes, yes. Especially having taken a look at the whole list of guidelines, I definitely am friends with people who would could struggle to determine whether a given comment fits or not.
Lots of people break HN guidelines. I see it virtually every day.
> And why would you want to "improve your writing" for an HN comment?
Some people like to write well regardless of the medium. Why is that a problem for you?
> I think people here value raw authenticity more than polished writing.
Classic false dichotomy. Asking an LLM for feedback is not making your comment less authentic. As I pointed out elsewhere, it can make your comment more authentic by ensuring that what you had in your head and what you wrote match.
Go and study writing and psychology. For anything of value, it's rare that your first attempt reflects what you meant to say. It's also rare that the first attempt, even if it reflects what you meant, will not be absorbed by the recipient. Saying what you mean, and having it understood as you meant it, is a difficult skill.
Yes, and AI won't help here. People will use AI to better break the guidelines.
> Go and study writing and psychology
Is this a case where you should have read the guidelines? Maybe an LLM could have helped you here? Please don't send me study anything, you know what they say of ASSuming.
> Some people like to write well regardless of the medium. Why is that a problem for you?
HN is more like talking than writing. And LLMs don't help you write well, they help you sound like a clone, which is unwanted.
> For anything of value, it's rare that your first attempt reflects what you meant to say.
You can always edit your comment. And in any case, HN is like a live conversation. Imagine if your friend AI-edited their speech in real-time as they talked to you.
I personally don't use an LLM to spellcheck (browser spellcheck works fine), but I see no problem with someone using an LLM to point out spelling errors.
And while I don't complain about others' spelling errors, I sure do notice them. And if someone writes a long wall of text as one giant paragraph that has lots of spelling/grammatical issues, chances are very high I won't read it.
Some people write very poorly by almost any standard. If an LLM helps the person write better, I'm all for it. There's a world of a difference between copy/pasting from the LLM and asking it for feedback.
Spellcheckers exist, you don't need an AI to change your voice.
Also, if you have standards, you can always train yourself to spell better!
How is using an AI to spell check changing my voice?
Yes, thank you - I know spellcheckers exist, as my comment clearly states. The amusing thing is that an LLM who had access to the thread would have alerted you to a basic error you're making.
> Also, if you have standards, you can always train yourself to spell better!
"You can always ..." is not an argument against alternatives.
> The amusing thing is that an LLM who had access to the thread would have alerted you to a basic error you're making.
I didn't make the "basic error" of assuming you didn't know spellcheckers existed. I was stressing that since spellcheckers already exist, you don't need an AI assisting your comments-writing. Much basic, non-style-altering alternatives exist and are better.
> "You can always ..." is not an argument against alternatives.
The argument I'm making is that if you care so much about standards you can always hone them yourself instead of taking the lazy way out of having an AI write for you.
Alternatively, if you're lazy then your standards aren't too high.
And yes, this is an argument against the alternative you're suggesting.
At least that was the case before LLMs became a thing, now I'm not sure anymore.
For example, use "literally" for exaggeration rather than in the original meaning of the word and you'll likely trigger somebody.
It's against the HN guidelines to focus on punctuation, spelling, etc, as long as the comment is understood.
And, in any case, it's now against the guidelines to write using an AI :)
