It may be time to retire Mr. Betteridge.

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=betteridge&sort=byDate&prefix&...

This is the first time I see Algolia in action. So far it seems to do the best job of all HN search engines that I have seen.

Does it mean HN is paying Algolia for this service or is this just a trial ?

Algolia has been HN's official search for a long time now!

Terms come into currency to fulfil a need; as long as headlines like this are on the front page, then "Betteridge" will remain useful.

It isn't a term, it's a platitude. Mentioning it upon sight of a question mark has become a local tic—little more than a specialized "first!". Predictable comments add no new information and so dilute the threads.

But what's worse is the attempt to stop discussion. Yes, baity titles often ask baity questions, but HN has other means to deal with those. Meanwhile, other questions are legitimate and deserve sincere consideration.

Betteridge was interesting when pg first brought it up [1]. It was fun to toss about for a while. Three years and hundreds of invocations later, it is long past cliché.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4092880

Maybe that need is why change (log) currency is so important. With headligns we say yes or no rules, there is forced error between terms.

Where really terming needs worthy space (safe) to audit psychotechnological/narrative trails, we fight judging betters as-if technology today has limited memory.

A. https://archive.today/memdu (see History, judge yourself)

I haven't once seen Betteridge's Law be 'useful'. It's an academic quirk, and there are enough exceptions that 'law' is a misnomer. I can't recall a single time when someone has mentioned it and it's actually added to the conversation.

Almost every time someone asks a question in a headline, it's because it's BS and they don't think they could get away with making the statement directly.

It's a more specific way of stating that an article is clearly space-filling BS. As this one is.

So, you're saying that stating Betteridge's Law is a way of making an empty, contentless comment that doesn't look like an empty, contentless comment? We can do without either. If you think something is nonsense, say so, and give a reason. Don't just make a useless comment.

But it's so totally appropriate given the deluge of BITCOIN WILL SAVE THE WORDL articles.

This is not such an article.

It is, you know. "Remittances!" is a standard Bitcoin selling point. Because it sounds plausible. Even if it doesn't actually work out that way, because it turns out that last mile is the expensive bit.