[myfonj]

> are not shown to readers.

I also wonder, why conceal bits of information from readers, while they could possibly benefit of them the same way editors and writers do. Admittedly, the outcome then seem like a poetry, but … why not?

To give it a shot on that page, simple way to see these breaks it to run

    document.body.insertAdjacentHTML
    ( 'afterend'
    ,`<style>p, li { white-space: pre-line; }</style>`
    )

in devtools console. (Using `pre-wrap` instead of `pre-line` is also interesting: indents "wrapped" lines by the source code indent, what gives it even more clarity.

(By the way, HN comments also preserve line breaks in the source output, but unless revealed by some extra style, they are usually not presented on the surface.)

[bmacho]

Here's a userscript to apply it automatically, and show all the extra whitespaces people put in their comments. (There aren't many.)

  // ==UserScript==
  // @name         HN comments show whitespace
  // @description  Changes HackerNews CSS to show comments with original whitesapaces
  // @match        https://news.ycombinator.com/*
  // @run-at       document-body
  // @grant        none
  // ==/UserScript==
  
  // HN inserts a newline after <pre> so formatted code blocks have a whole newline after them
  // but we can remove that extra space with negative margin
  
  const HN_noformat_CSS_rule = `
  div.commtext.c00 {
    white-space: pre-wrap !important;
  }
  div.commtext.c00 > pre {  
    margin-bottom: -.25em !important;
  }
  `;
  
  let myStyleHolder = document.createElement('style');
  myStyleHolder.textContent = HN_noformat_CSS_rule;
  document.head.appendChild(myStyleHolder);