Why are more posters now using bullet points instead of paragraphs?

[ExOptimist]

Why have so many posters started to put their comments in bullet points? I see it more and more and find it irritating.
What's wrong with just using paragraphs?

They're using ai.

I think because people often don't want to read generated text over human opinion
they are skimming for obvious tells like formatting. But tone & vocab I think is more revealing. @Selkin has done a good imitation of Claude above for example (although the bullets are far too sarky I'm afraid)

Well, it seems posters can’t win. If posters write in paragraphs then the illiterati from the shallow end of the gene pool start thrashing around and complaining that posts are too long for them to read, despite them having chosen to join an optional written discussion; posters will often get accused of being an AI for using lengthier sentences and correct punctuation or for writing using a vocabulary more varied than would be included in an article in The Sun; and many people also do not read posts properly before responding then start arguing about something they haven’t invented or imagined.

If, instead, posters shorten their points and spell them out in bullet points/ summary form then that is apparently also wrong and also means you’re an AI.

The main issue for me is that MN is getting more & more AI spam posts, asking for people’s experiences of a particular product, promoting people’s blogs or working up to pushing their content, & they always end with phrases like ‘Would love to hear people’s experiences! ☺️’ so it’s hard to tell the difference between the spam crap & the genuine posters who are using AI to help them write.

I think if people are going to use AI they should mention it in their post so it’s clear they’re not a bot.

Fair enough! That makes sense. I suppose it depends on the thread to some extent. If it is lighthearted and chatty, then it would indeed be a bit odd to use bullet points. If it was something more serious eg asking how do something, bullet points might be reasonable on occasions. I do see what you mean though.

Aren’t such things perfectly normal, basic structures for writing, particularly in short form such as for emails, papers, letters (other than personal ones), online comments etc.? I find it bizarre that so many posters think only AI uses sub-headings, punctuation, bullet points etc.: where do they think AI learned this technique from?

I have been accused of being an AI by numerous posters on Mumsnet and I see posters accusing others of it regularly, too. It seems particularly common for such accusations to be levied by the type of poster who writes as an unintelligible “stream of consciousness” with no punctuation at all, writes with exceptionally poor grammar or includes strange spelling errors in basic, common words (errors which are usually repeated and, therefore, don’t appear to be typos). Perhaps it’s incomprehensible to such people that some posters can write in coherent sentences without the assistance of AI. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Once you click on a post, you can see straight away whether there’s bullet points. What is preventing you from closing those posts and opening others that are more to your liking?

When you don’t know someone, have never even met them, don’t even know their first name… how can you “think less of them” @ExOptimist ?

I'm an author and therefore won't use AI on principle and I am a little bit worried about people who read a question and then dash straight to ChatGPT to find an answer (almost as though the original questioner had never even thought to consult AI) and then posts with 'ChatGPT says....' and a cut and paste answer.

Surely the whole point of most posts is to get genuine, human opinions on things? If a poster wanted an AI answer then surely they are as capable as the responder of checking ChatGPT in the first instance?

It is the equivalent of the now very old-fashioned 'just fucking Google it.'

I'm an author and therefore won't use AI on principle and I am a little bit worried about people who read a question and then dash straight to ChatGPT to find an answer (almost as though the original questioner had never even thought to consult AI) and then posts with 'ChatGPT says....' and a cut and paste answer.
not one comma or full stop

I like bullet points on a work document. Not so much on a chat forum, because it is blindingly obvious it's a cut-&-paste job or AI.

You know exactly what I mean, no need to pretend you don't. Or more likely, you're trying to make yourself feel superior.

I should have said I don't think much of them. Does that make it clearer for you to understand?

There is a beautiful irony here
You say you think “less” of posters who use bullet points
so you feel superior

So glad to have provided you with some satisfaction today.

Yes I do feel superior to them.
But at least I'm honest about it rather than making a faux-naif questioning post implying you were superior simply because I said I thought less of people who used bullet points, instead of saying I didn't think much of them.

You can’t be happy

Astonished that people assume I've used AI when I write in bullet form.

Not sure where you get that from but I have a great life thanks.

I have realised you're someone it's no longer worth engaging with.

@Prunesrlush

What has OP's happiness got to do with the price of fish?

I feel the same way about posters who jump on a thread with their "oh so important" comments hours/days/weeks/months after the situation has been resolved, or without reading any of the updates which clarify/alter the context of the original OP.

It's not about feeling "superior" and has nothing to do with whether I am happy or not. If a poster can't be arsed to read the thread or has absolutely no interest in how a situation may have evolved, then I have no interest in whatever comment they may make.

Sorry for the derail OP! (hope it hasn't made you "unhappy")

Not always. 🙄 Some of us do it because it can enhance readability.

Can’t imagine feeling “superior” to someone I don’t know, never seen, never will, and literally know nothing about aside from fact they used bullet points on meaningless chat forum.

But hey… we all get our kicks in our own way

Yeah, but you're not paying me to write on here so I write as I want/

There used to be a poster who did my head in, typed out paragraphs of complete drivel, with about 30 emojis.
E.g.
'Hi OP 👋🏻
I have a different take to everyone else 📚 I think 🤔 you should'

Just made myself annoyed typing that.

You only use punctuation if someone is paying you?

I'm only going to take time over writing messages on social media equivalent to the time I've got available and I'm not going to take loads of time over correcting how I write, no. You seem to have got the point of my message so - there's that. Give me twenty quid and I'll punctuate all day.

Too busy for punctuation. Wow! That busy!