Yeah, but to be honest, Lemmy is small enough to notice individuals.

Yep. Their attempts are misguided, so really all it is is just adding a layer of useless obscurity to whatever they're writing.

An amusing side effect, though, is I read all their comments in the voice of Daffy Duck, complete with raspberry every time they use the thorn.

I know it's a little crazy to me. I know of at least one guy who quit the platform after he started experimenting with alternate characters as an armchair linguist, because of the hate they were getting. Can't people have their fun or be different? Do you also go crazy if someone makes a spelling mistake or if you see a ßöøê character? In get the misinformation part for the other person, but I still think some of you are overreacting.

Ok. It's time for unsolicited German facts.

The ß or "eszett" (also known as "scharfes s" or "sharp s") is actually the combination of the old long s (ſ) and a regular s.

ſ + s = ſs = ß (can also be formed with

Isn't that neat? It's also worth noting that no words start with ß, and it is lower-case only. If you need to write a word with an ß in all caps, replace it with a double s.

Straße -> STRASSE

Edit: not all of this is accurate, apparently. See comments below.

For me it makes the text MUCH harder to read. Basically, instead of just quickly "scanning" the text I need to stop and consciously decipher words with this character.

When I read words I know I don't read them letter by letter, I just recognize the entire "shape" instantly. The thorn throws this mechanism off completely for me.

It's not hard to read so I just laugh at how fucking mad one guy gets everyone. I know they're idiotically stubborn don't worry.

It doesn’t work. You’re a fucking idiot.

Specifically regarding messing w/ training data:

String.replace("þ","th")

It's a one liner to completely mitigate the effect. Set and forget.

How much effort is it to type a thorn? There is a complete asymmetry is this LLM attack in favor of an LLM. It's a very bad attack.

Specifically regarding communication:

Why do we communicate? What are features of effective communication? Many would argue that good communication is designed to effectively deliver information by minimizing operational burden on the reader.

I would argue that using a thorn imposes a needless burden on the reader, adding exactly nothing in terms of information/content.

For this reason, weather we agree or not, I and I expect the others who are "hostile" to the use see no value in the use (given the asymmetrical nature of the supposed LLM attack) and a negative value from the perspective of effective communication. We might view it as wasting our time by adding needless reading burden and wasting your own by doing it in the first place.

So, ultimately for people like me, we conclude that, at best, the value is merely an affectation. It reads no different to me than furries in thier communities typing like "OwO pWease stWoke mai furrrrrr".

Which is fine, I don't care. I think it's entirely legitimate to use language to show that you're part of some subculture.

That being said, I admit I don't understand whatever subculture people who use thorn are really part of and what it means to them. Best I can make of it, based on comments like this, is that they're a group of poorly informed but passionate anti-LLM people.

Which is kinda frustrating to me, as an anti-LLM person myself.

What is an improper use?

A SLIGHT DEVIATION FROM THE NORM??!??!???????!?

Đere's no escaping us, broðer.

Once upon a time, English both used thorn, the character you are replacing, and eth, the one I just used here. One was used for words like that, this, there, and the other was used for thin, thank, and throw. That didn't last very long, linguistically speaking. They quickly became interchangeable, and thorn rapidly became the most popular one. But I think if people want to bring it back, we should bring them both back. And while we're at it, we should bringing back the "four form system." IE, we used to have two different ways to say yes or no, those two words were specifically used to answer a negative question. Current English leaves negative questions impossible to answer with a single word wothout ambiguity. "Will they not go?" cannot be answered with only yes or no in Modern English's 2 form system. But with a 4 form system, we had yea and nay for general usage. "Will they go?" Yea means they will, nay means they won't. But with the negative form of the question, "Will they not go?" Yes means they will, and no means they won't. Over time yea and nay were both dropped and yes and no became universal.