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Comment by summarity | Hacker News Reader

“Opt in by default” would mean that it is not enabled by default. Do you mean opt out?

Yes, I found this comment very hard to understand until I realised they were talking about it being opt-out with no setting to change it. (At first I thought it was opt-in by default, and the "by default" implies that there is a setting to change the opt-in/opt-out setting)

You are "opting in to sharing your prompts for training", by default in this case. My slider says: "Allow the use of your interactions with Vibe to train Mistral's AI models.", it is on by default for everyone on the Team plan, the admin can't centrally turn it off anymore, and any user can toggle it when they want to. This all changed last week.

I know I'm naive but I expect that when I pay, this stuff is simply off, so I was already surprised by the Pro plan. But I did look out for it there, because Anthropic made this switch some time ago.

> You are "opting in to sharing your prompts for training", by default in this case.

The English term for that is "opt out" not "opt in." To opt is to choose. If something is on by default, you have not opted in. You were forced in, and turning it off means you must opt out. (I.e., choose to be out.)

normally I wouldn't care about a mistake like this, except that opt in/out are very important concepts in software development and hacker culture. And it reversed the meaning of the original comment in a highly confusing, relevant way.

as another non-native speaker, i think that while the person you're answering to didn't use the default way of expressing this in the english-speaking world, i did understand what they meant, i think they do know what opting means and i think the reasoning is this: when they say data collection is "opt in" by default they mean that by choosing to use a product, you are opting into your data being collected (at the same time). on the other hand, native speakers saying something is "opt out" describes the options or toggles one has available in the default case - when something is toggled "true", you (only) have the choice to toggle it of. so english speakers talk about the controls one has to CHANGE the status quo.

As another non-native speaker, I misunderstood what the person meant.

They said "opt in to training on prompts by default," which is coherent English and perfectly fine. The phrases "opt in" and "opt out" will always be contextual based on what is being opted, so it really falls to the reader to pay attention to that context. Please don't give English language advice as though you are an authority; there is not a rule of the English language that would make their usage unacceptable.

I find the usage bizarre and confusing, as others also clearly do. There’s nothing wrong with pointing this out.

Since the whole idea of ‘opt in’ is choosing to do something, the only reasonable interpretation of ‘opt in by default’ is that the default state requires you to make the choice yourself. However I try to bend my brain, sing the term ‘opt in’ for the exact opposite makes no sense whatsoever.

Note that I’m not using English grammar as my argument; human language (and English especially) has plenty of exceptions and expressions which make little sense, and if people were to adopt this phrasing en masse, it would naturally become a part of the language, whether it makes sense or not. My argument is that adopting this phrasing is a terrible, user-hostile decision and in my honest opinion we really, really, really ought to avoid it.

I read it as though he was trying to say '[you are] opt[ed] in by default'.

Now granted, he did not say that, and I only reached that conclusion by the rest of this conversation, but I think to have meant that and said '... was now also opt-in by default...' isn't unreasonable.

Just sharing since you mentioned you couldn't see how using that term for the opposite would make sense.

Even read this way, it doesn't make logical sense. It's a great example of newspeak - corporations know people use "opt-in" as a purchasing signal, so they're trying to redefine the word by abusing it enough times.

"Opting someone else in" is essentially the same category of error as "consenting for someone else". People can only consent for others in specific circumstances and even then only for specific people (e.g. legal guardians), trying to argue "but I consented for them!" in front of a judge usually ain't gonna work.

Thank you. However, assuming you mean ‘an affirmative choice is made for you’ when you say ’you are opted in’, that use really takes the ‘opt’ out of the ’opt-in’. You can opt in, but you can’t have someone else ‘opt you in’ for you; that seems to go against the very core meaning of ‘opt-in’ (i.e. having to explicitly choose something yourself).

In other words, you can explicitly choose something by yourself, but if other people (in this case companies, service providers) choose something for you, it’s no longer your explicit decision made by yourself. Hence why I believe we can’t consider that ‘opting in’.

Here's the dictionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/opt-in

> The property of having to choose *explicitly* to join or permit something; a decision having the *default option being exclusion or avoidance*; used particularly with regard to mailing lists and advertising.

You're just using the term wrong. That's okay, I've used words wrong before, and it just means you've been presented an opportunity for learning a new fact.

But there's no argument to be had except with the dictionary.

My use seems to be perfectly in line with the given dictionary definition, though? Did you perhaps mean to address a different comment?

> They said "opt in to training on prompts by default," which is coherent English and perfectly fine.

No, it's really not. It should read "opted in to training on prompts by default".

"Opt in" means "you have to affirmatively turn this thing on". "Opted in" means "the thing is currently enabled".

Which is why it's probably better to write it as "enabled by default". Much harder to misinterpret.

> They said "opt in to training on prompts by default," which is coherent English and perfectly fine

"Opt in" and "by default" are contradictory phrases. They mean literally the opposite of each other. The only reason it's coherent is that most native speakers will elect to believe "by default" was used correctly because it's the easier to use term.

> there is not a rule of the English language that would make their usage unacceptable

I think you're using emotionally inflammatory language, possibly unintentionally. no one is refusing to accept what they wrote.

That being said, the way they used "opt in" is categorically wrong. It's the opposite of the dictionary definition.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/opt-in

> The property of having to choose explicitly to join or permit something; a decision having the default option being exclusion or avoidance; used particularly with regard to mailing lists and advertising.

> You are "opting in to sharing your prompts for training", by default in this case.

I understand what you're saying here, but maybe "turned on by default" is less confusing for everyone.

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