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This is probably a duplicate...

Question 1

I'm often asked to review edits made by users with even less reputation than I. Many of these edits texify titles. But on this page it's written

Ensure that the title contains some actual words, and not only $\LaTeX$ -- the search functionality of MSE does not interact well with typeset mathematics, making questions comprising only $\LaTeX$ (much) harder to find. Furthermore, the MathJax context menu (which pops up when you right-click on some typeset expression) overrides the browser's link context menu, making e.g. opening the question in a new tab difficult.

I this policy still in force?

Question 2

It seems to me MSE policy is to start the title of a question, as often as possible, with an upper case letter. Is it so? (I, personally, tend to start with an upper case letter when the title of the question is a sentence, ending with a period of a question mark, and to use lower case letters otherwise, but I don't mind changing!)

Question 3

Where are users supposed to find answers to such questions?

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    $\begingroup$ This is also related: How to ask a good question? - A good title. (Ant this may, to some extent, answer question 3: Where are users supposed to find answers to such questions?) $\endgroup$ – Martin Sleziak Aug 6 '14 at 12:24
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    $\begingroup$ You should never start a sentence with a symbol. Bad: 2 is a number. Good: Two is a number. Bad: $\int\sin x dx$: how to work it out? Good: How do I work out $\int\sin x dx$? (This is maths, not Math.SE.) $\endgroup$ – user1729 Aug 6 '14 at 12:31
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    $\begingroup$ Also on Meta.SE: Capitalizing titles. $\endgroup$ – user147263 Aug 31 '14 at 1:36
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I this policy still in force?

I'll put it this way: this is still a good idea. Makes it easier for folks to do the right-click -> new tab maneuver. Makes titles easier to understand. Makes them more mobile-friendly: the page width is smaller there, and formulas don't linebreak as gracefully as text. Finally, having some text in titles makes them look less like gobbledygook to Google; I suspect Google may distrust the pages whose titles consist of random gobbledygook.

It seems to me MSE policy is to start the title of a question, as often as possible, with an upper case letter. Is it so?

I'd much rather see titles begin with an uppercase letter whether or not it's a complete sentence or ends with a period. All-lowercase titles look lazy. Title case makes perfect sense in principle, but on the Internet I find sentence-case titles easier to look at, especially when long. I saw enough of Twelve Amazing Tricks To Present Page Titles In Most Trashy Way Possible.

Also, compare with arXiv (below). Sure, arXiv is not a Q&A site, but the comparison makes sense because in both places we have titles ordered in a long list on a page, with somewhat similar page layout.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for you nice and prompt answer! +1! Yes I meant title, not text. I edited. Sorry for these typos... (Thanks for the edit...) $\endgroup$ – Pierre-Yves Gaillard Aug 6 '14 at 12:57

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