Two reasons I can think of it being age related, though I think it’s pretty common at any age:

1. Cognition and short term memory isn’t what it used to be, and saying things out loud helps
2. With age you stop giving a fuck what people around you think (source: self)

Shopping cart theory

There is a theory in UX that says that it is a bad design when it violates the users expectations of how they think it should work. In this case, the interface may not be clear enough about what you’re actually typing. You’re not typing WYSIWYG text, as you stated in your edit, you are in fact typing source code, or more specifically: markup, in a language punningly called Markdown.

Some of the confusion in the other replies come from your use of the term Carriage Return (CR) which has a very specific meaning to programmers and does not refer to the Return/Enter key. I won’t go into that more here, since that’s another tangent.

Anyway, Markdown is designed to be a lightweight markup language, so you can focus mostly on content and apply light formatting where needed for emphasis or bolding. As such, it’s a good fit for online comments, provided the users are familiar with it, or enough contextual help is available.

Part of Markdown is that it needs two line breaks or two spaces at the end of a line to introduce a forced line break. This is just a choice the creators made of how things should work in Markdown (more on that below). In HTML, for example, you would use <br> instead.

To your question as to why go through that trouble and not just use the newline characters as-is, the most likely reason people prefer it is text editors. By allowing you to break up long passages of text with single line breaks, you don’t need to rely on the editor’s word-wrap function to keep the full lines visible in your editor.

Markdown is mostly authored more like source code than prose. Moreover, as it is “code”, it may be subject to automated reformatting that could impose its own line-length rules, etc. and that would ruin the formatting. This often results in long lines being wrapped twice: at the intended point and the forced breakpoint and it looks terrible.

The original Markdown spec by John Gruber explains it like this:

Paragraphs and Line Breaks

A paragraph is simply one or more consecutive lines of text, separated by one or more blank lines. (A blank line is any line that looks like a blank line — a line containing nothing but spaces or tabs is considered blank.) Normal paragraphs should not be indented with spaces or tabs.

The implication of the “one or more consecutive lines of text” rule is that Markdown supports “hard-wrapped” text paragraphs. This differs significantly from most other text-to-HTML formatters (including Movable Type’s “Convert Line Breaks” option) which translate every line break character in a paragraph into a <br /> tag.

When you do want to insert a <br /> break tag using Markdown, you end a line with two or more spaces, then type return.

Yes, this takes a tad more effort to create a <br />, but a simplistic “every line break is a <br />” rule wouldn’t work for Markdown. Markdown’s email-style blockquoting and multi-paragraph list items work best — and look better — when you format them with hard breaks.

You can argue that that makes it not a good fit for online comment editing, and I would say you have a great point, but it’s also very popular and works well for the most common cases. (Especially with programmers because it has many nice features for us.)

Many web apps do allow you to switch between HTML content editing mode (WYSIWYG) and Markdown. I imagine the reason why not more apps do it is just because it’s more code to write, test, and maintain.

I usually recommend people learn more about Markdown to avoid being frustrated by the quirks, and maybe even find some handy tricks they didn’t already know. On the other side of the screen, as developers, we need to keep in mind that not everyone knows Markdown, and we need to make sure it’s obvious to users what it is they are editing and where to find information about it.

No problem. I just spent a few minutes prompting Gemini and requested that it provided sources. I think it’s about right, because it matches what I remember (LTT had a YT privilege to replace videos in situ, where as GN did not), but the usual AI caveats apply. Sorry if that seems low-effort, but I don’t see a rule against quoting AI, and I’m not that invested in this either. (Mods: please take this down if it’s against any rules).

The response it gave me at first was a bit too long for this post so I asked it to summarize, and I’ve added the other sources it gave me to the bottom.

Here is a condensed summary of the controversy:

• The Core Issue: In August 2023, the YouTube channel Gamers Nexus (GN) published a massive 44-minute exposé criticizing Linus Tech Tips (LTT) for rushing content, which led to significant data and testing errors in their hardware reviews.
• The “VIP” Privilege: GN revealed that instead of taking down flawed videos and losing their algorithmic momentum, LTT was using a backdoor YouTube privilege—available only to massive creators through a partner manager—to silently replace the source video file on the backend after publication.
• The Proof: GN proved this by comparing the YouTube versions of LTT’s videos to versions syndicated on the Chinese platform Bilibili. Because LTT didn’t have the same VIP privilege on Bilibili, the original uncorrected videos containing glaring data errors were still live there, while the YouTube versions had been magically fixed.
• The Fallout: GN argued this was an unfair advantage that allowed LTT to prioritize quantity over quality without facing the massive financial and algorithmic penalties that regular creators face when forced to re-upload. Following the intense community backlash, LTT paused their entire production schedule to overhaul their quality control labs and promised full transparency regarding future video corrections.

Why GamersNexus Hates LinusTechTips

This video essay provides a comprehensive retrospective and breakdown of the entire Gamers Nexus and Linus > Tech Tips controversy, providing further context on the claims and the resulting fallout.

Sources:

• How to Upload New Video to Same YouTube URL?
• Mashable: “YouTube channel Linus Tech Tips halts production to address content errors”
• r/LinusTechTips: In-Place Video Replacements is an Unethical Practice
• Appuals: Gamers Nexus Expose Linus Tech Tips For Quantity Over Quality

Yep. A lot of things would go sideways in healthcare if the Internet was down for an extended period of time. Yes, there are paper-based backup processes and so on, but they can only hold for so long. I don’t think people realize how much stuff is already in the cloud that we all depend on.

It depends how long it lasts. A day, two days, forever?

We can probably deal with a day, but it would be very very expensive and take a while to clean up.

Permanent? That would be extremely bad. Entire industries would collapse, with unemployment skyrocketing. Financial losses of unprecedented scale. I don’t even know where to start.

It could definitely be me misremembering. I’ll see tonight if I can find it. Either way, it would be GN making that claim, so not exactly an independent source.

Yes. Red Solo cups. Solo makes large reinforced plastic cups that are cheap and disposable, yet very sturdy. These aren’t your grandma’s flimsy paper cups.

We don’t use them for fancy dinner parties (well, most of us) but they’re great for backyard barbecues, college parties, etc.

If I remember correctly, YouTube treats/treated some big time creators differently and gives them access to actually do in video edits. LTT had this access, GN did not. It’s been a long time since and I’m not on my computer right now so I don’t have a source, but that’s my memory of it.

It depends. If they modify or link to GPL components, yes they have to publish it. If it’s LGPL, then maybe no. Anyone can freely distribute GPL software that is unmodified and standalone.

Of course, they could just choose to be in violation of the license if nobody sues them.

I guess that’s fair, and I really need to learn to not make off the cuff statements without going into details on Lemmy :)

I really had in mind more things that have prices printed on, etc. I definitely agree we would be better off including tax on price tags.

I agree it shouldn’t take that much effort to include it in things that have dynamic displays (like gas), but I suspect the reason for that is part inertia, part confusion when it’s included or not, part nobody wants to look like they raised prices.

Sales tax in the US is also not a VAT. And every state and municipality are free to have their own rules. My town where I live and the next one over have different sales tax rates (on top of state sales tax), which is part of the reason why it won’t be on the price tag. It’s just not practical.

Universities often have subscriptions to those services. Maybe you can ask a someone at one to download them.

Usually this would be through their library and require them to log in to do it, so don’t redistribute them if you get a copy.

Your insurance doesn’t cover multisyllabic answers, sorry.

People already prompt their AI to do this.

Personally I think trying to detect AI is a lost cause and they need to do something different. Back in my day all tests were in person with no tools except a calculator, but I can see how that won’t scale.

100% this. I’ve gotten the same spam even on Mastodon. They are cat fishing. They will get you engaged with photos they stole off the Internet (sometimes you find them with reverse search), then try to get more personal on a less moderated medium like email or text, maybe Signal or something. It’s a long con, but can go as far as “pig butchering” scams that can cost you everything.

When you get these, just report and block. They’re most likely a bot, or worse: people who are victims of human trafficking forced to scam people. (I suggest not researching this if you have any shred of faith in humanity left.)

I read that they walked it back but only partially. And the fact they tried it tells me they can’t be trusted with my data.

They also make it very difficult to move your data off their NAS once it’s on there, because everything is proprietary.

Your best option remains open source with commodity hardware. Had I known what I know now in 2023, I would have probably just built a low power PC server with TruNAS.

Synology has started enshittifying their products lately by forcing you to only use their hard drives, etc. I have a DS933+, but I’m only using it for file storage and trying not to lock myself into their apps. It works well, but to avoid lock in your only real option is open source.

Married with five kids?

best known for his ability to roll cigarettes with his lips.

I see.

No. You should scrape off chunks but you should not rinse them off completely.

Like others I highly recommend seeking the wisdom of Technology Connections on YouTube, but if you prefer reading over video, here is an article from The Spruce that covers the main points.