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free_rip comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 7 - Less Wrong
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Both colons and semi-colons are known to break the flow of writing. Dashes generally flow better than semi-colons. This is something I've found after writing many pieces (often with lots of semi-colons, which my natural style has a lot of) on a peer review writing-site and having reviewers tell me - 'x sentence doesn't flow well' for basically every sentence with a semi-colon.
They work better in non-fic writing, where the flow can be more formal.
A substantial disadvantage of semi-colons is simply that they're rare. If a small but significant portion of your readers don't read them as you intend you're better off finding another way.
It's a pity though, because if I were writing for perfect clones of me, they'd often be the best choice.
I use semicolons a lot more when writing on Less Wrong (and other places where intelligence is high) than on many other places.