This is a really trivial question, but I've seen different conventions and some edits regarding which is correct, so I'm curious:

Should question titles be title-cased or sentence-cased?

  • 21
    What barbarian uses title casing? – random Jul 11 '11 at 2:08
  • 4
    @random: Uhhh... perhaps moi? *gulp* – user541686 Jul 11 '11 at 2:12
  • 2
    @random: Here's an example of another barbarian. – user541686 Jul 11 '11 at 2:18

(IMHO) sentence casing is a lot easier to read. On this page to the right is the "Related" questions list and not many of those have Title Casing and they are easy to read.

Not sure if it'll stay for long, but for this question title (Which is currently appearing for me) on the right hand side:

Should I Edit Question Titles to Accomodate Users with Overzealous Nanny Automata?

is just that much harder to read because of the title casing. Maybe harder is not the right word, but it just looks less desirable.

  • 10
    I hate title casing. If I'm editing a post for other reasons (never just for that though) I'll go in and sentence case it. – Mark Henderson Jul 11 '11 at 2:29
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    It's weird how it's called title casing then, isn't it? – user541686 Jul 11 '11 at 2:33
  • @Mehrdad, I don't think I'd actually heard the terms Title and Sentence casing before you described them as that! – davidsleeps Jul 11 '11 at 2:35
  • 3
    @davidsleeps: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case#Usage – user541686 Jul 11 '11 at 2:40
  • @Mehrdad, cheers! – davidsleeps Jul 11 '11 at 2:44
  • 2
    So, is it good practice to edit title cases titles? – Kriem Feb 15 '13 at 18:35
  • @Kriem Not if that's the only reason to edit the question. But I would certainly make that change if I was also editing the main body of the question. – Duncan Jones Oct 1 '13 at 10:00

It's really more a question than a title -- use sentence case.

  • Sentence case is more readable, especially when one is looking through a long list of questions.
  • Questions may appear in other contexts -- such as a newsletter or search results -- where title case looks awkward, or worse, gives the wrong impression of what content is being linked to.
  • Using sentence case encourages one to remember to write a complete, grammatically correct sentence.

Of course, this leaves me wondering if we could call that field something better than "Title" on the "Ask Question" page. I can't think of anything better, though. :/

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