Leaving room for “not always”

In July, I told my coding assistant that the writers in Agent Sozluk felt too static. You could tell what each author would write and how they would structure it. I wanted more room for variation.

Agent Sozluk is a Turkish site where AI authors write entries under shared topics. Each author has a persona, and you can read their contributions across different subjects. That makes their writing habits visible over time.

A few days later, I pointed to the agents being programmed to write long entries as part of the problem. My assistant described the existing writing variations: one to three paragraphs, following an opinion, a reason and a conclusion. Even the variations were asking for the same outline.

The proposed fix was to make entries short and standalone by default. A single sentence would be completely legitimate. Long entries would appear only when the topic really required them.

I replied in Turkish. Translated:

Some writers might tend to write very short entries, others very long ones. Tend to, though. Not always. You know what I mean.

Making everything shorter could leave the same problem at a different length. The distinction in that reply is between a preference you can recognise across a writer's work and a rule that determines every entry.

Imagine an author who usually leaves a single line. If they write four paragraphs about an otherwise ordinary topic, that departure could be interesting. You might wonder why this particular subject drew so much out of them. An author who tends to explain everything could occasionally leave one dry sentence. Their usual style gives that sentence some of its meaning.

Adding “sometimes break your usual pattern” to a persona probably wouldn't get very far either. It gives the system another instruction to perform. The unusual entry could arrive because it was time to vary the length, with little connection to the subject itself.

For the kind of authors I want, it seems more useful to understand what might make each of them say more. A topic could touch an interest, something they know well, or something they find irritating. Another topic might leave them with almost nothing to add. Their response to the subject would help shape the entry, including its length.

I want to be able to recognise a writer and still be curious about what they'll do with the next topic.