Should We Use Title Case for Titles?

Question

This question was updated with the reason "Make title readable.".

The title was changed from How Can I Output File Size In Bytes AND MB? to How may I output file size in both bytes and MB?

So is it best practice here to not use Title Case for Titles? (Lets ignore that the original title wasn't proper Title Case anyway!).

Is there any difference across StackExchange?

e.g. because this is Unix & Linux and generally you would use lowercase in a unix/linux context?

I notice in the headers it says /ask question on Unix & Linux but Ask Question on Stack Overflow.

Answer 1

I updated that title.

I did so because I honestly had difficulties reading it. My brain was doing A Full Stop After Each Word. I also changed "can" to "may", but this was purely based on personal opinion about how to express a question like this.

In general, I would also edit SHOUTING and other

attention grabbing

typographical details that are irrelevant to the actual question being asked.

We have no rules about this, but if I have difficulties reading a question because of typography, I will likely edit it, if it's at all interesting to me.

Answer 2

No, we shouldn't use title case in question titles. It hurts readability. Reading title case is unusual, so it's an immediate barrier to quick reading. Titles usually don't contain multiple sentences, but they often contain proper nouns, which title case causes makes it harder to spot.

Title case is commonly used in print newspapers to make titles stand out more. In print newspapers, titles are located at arbitrary positions on the page. This is generally not the case in online media. It's very uncommon in the online edition of newspapers. In a quick survey, I've only found it on the New York Times. The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Globe and Mail, the Times, the Independent, the Guardian, the Telegraph all use normal case in article titles even on the front page.

Title case is also commonly used for book titles. It isn't used for chapter and section titles.