Does every question mark deserve a Betteridge?

To blog is to get dunked on. I accept this. I even sometimes wonder if I should be grateful, as I suspect my willingness to get dunked on may represent a kind of comparative advantage. (You can tell yourself that if you try to placate the haters, you’ll just ruin things for people who like you. But how do you feel when you’re staring down barrel of a 127 comment thread full of people debating how it’s possible that you’re such an idiot?)

Still, there’s one particular species of dunking that puzzles me. For context, Betteridge’s law states:1

Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

This is often employed as a sick burn, as in, You titled your article ‘Is this the world’s first gay caveman?’ because it’s not the world’s first gay caveman but you wanted it to be, because you want attention, you are so bad, har-har.

But I don’t quite understand the rules. Can someone explain the rules?

Question 1: Are question marks in titles always bad?

I’m just checking. I suppose I could see the logic, e.g. if you strongly feel that the bottom line should always come right up front. But I’m pretty sure that’s not the rule, because “this title used a question mark” is not regarded as a sick burn.

Question 2: Are question marks only OK if the essay ends with a full-throated “yes”?

Sometimes it does seem like this is the rule. But it’s strange. If it were universally enforced, we could all mentally convert “Do blue-blocking glasses improve sleep?” into “Yes, blue-blocking glasses really do improve sleep!” But then, of what use was the question mark? Why not just say they’re always bad?

If we’re going to allow questions that are actual questions, then it has to be possible for the answer to sometimes be something other than yes. On the other hand…

Question 3: Is Betteridge’s law useful at all?

I think so. At minimum, you can think of it as a convenient label for this theory:

1. Traditionally, news articles are written with the bottom line up front.
2. Tradi…