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At the bottom of unanswered questions:

Know someone who can answer? Share a link to this question via email, twitter, facebook, or linkedin.

This is a real full sentence, so should those names be capitalised properly like this?

Know someone who can answer? Share a link to this question via email, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

For example in this question:

enter image description here

Also, I noticed when you add an answer, the names are capitalised properly: "share your answer on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn".

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  • Or maybe should be E-Mail..
    – Soner Gönül
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 6:47
  • 9
    No, it should stay as email.
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 13:15
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    Also, I just noticed when you add an answer, the names are capitalised properly: "share your answer on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn".
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 13:43
  • Also, when you edit your profile, there's a whole load of these lowercase names in the unfilled text boxes, and also Linkedin should be LinkedIn.
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 9:01

5 Answers 5

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18

Yes.

If I was editing a question I would capitalize them properly (though I wouldn't edit a question just for that).

We should have the same standards for our messages as we would for our edits.

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  • Great! So when is it fixed? :)
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 9, 2011 at 19:30
  • 4
    6-8 weeks.
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Aug 9, 2011 at 19:33
6

Yes... No... Maybe. Chicken???

Go to those web sites. LinkedIn'sTM is Linkedin. Twitter is twitter. Facebook is facebook. While the common capitalizations make sense, it is hard to say that these don't entirely not make sense too (triple-negative is purposeful there). It becomes even harder as Google+ will undoubtedly be added, and Google in addition to being the all-powerful web corporation, is, along with Facebook, and Twitter, are all, at least in informal English, verbs.

Immediately, I can find one example of another source which is following the same mentality which drove the lack of capitalization.

Personal opinion? Always use as proper of a form as possible -- LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. But I also believe that it is a tragic misfortune that people exclude semi-colons from SMS and IM's.

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11
  • +1, for good points on actual site usage.
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 7:50
  • 5
    I notice that all the copyright notices on those sites are capitalized: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. What a conundrum.
    – Lance Roberts
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 7:53
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    @Lance +1 to you because I agree. High standards for language!
    – cwallenpoole
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 7:57
  • I don't really understand what semicolons have to do with this problem. I've had no trouble using semicolons in SMS...
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 10:10
  • @Cody It is a matter of standards -- informal English is becoming less and less proper.
    – cwallenpoole
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 10:35
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    I disagree, your example is about the logos. My question is about plaintext. Those sites capitalise their names when using plaintext. Also verbs have nothing to do with it, this usage is nouns.
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 13:21
  • @Hugo I agree that they should be capitalized in accord with their "print names", but I will also state that there is justification for the alternate argument. That said, I will also state that justification is not the strongest, but I cannot deny that it exists.
    – cwallenpoole
    Commented Aug 8, 2011 at 13:26
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    Big talk coming from a guy whose name is entirely in lowercase (also, +1).
    – Justin Morgan
    Commented Aug 9, 2011 at 13:54
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    @Justin My name isn't lowercase, my username is. And it is on gmail, and on my company website, and on... I'll say it is my "brand name", and then royally confuse the situation. ;-)
    – cwallenpoole
    Commented Aug 9, 2011 at 13:58
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    @cwallenpoole Surely you mean Gmail not gmail (according to both logo and plaintext) :)
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 9, 2011 at 19:29
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    @Hugo Hey, don't call me on my hypocrisy.
    – cwallenpoole
    Commented Aug 9, 2011 at 19:59
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This is a change that should be made, looking at Twitter's (just using Twitter as an example) "Guidelines for Use of the Twitter Trademark" it clearly states:

On the web: Use the phrase "Follow me/us on Twitter" with the word "Twitter" spelled out

Clearly, Facebook and LinkedIn have similar policies somewhere, but Twitter's was most easily available.

Further down its clearly written:

Please remember to capitalize the T in Twitter and Tweet!

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  • 2
    For those who like such guidelines: all about +1'ing (I refuse to use an uppercase T in "tweet".)
    – Arjan
    Commented Aug 31, 2011 at 20:36
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As kd7 found the guidelines for Twitter, I thought I hunt down the others.

Facebook guidelines:

 5. When referenced in text, Facebook should be capitalized.

Twitter (as kd7 already linked us to):

Please remember to capitalize the T in Twitter and Tweet!

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn isn't very clear on this. I can't find anything specifically about capitalizing it. Although, it looks like they would like something like: LinkedIn® professional networking services as a text link but LinkedIn® should be sufficient.

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1
  • Good stuff. Although I would drop the unsightly ® like they do in plain text: press.linkedin.com/about
    – Hugo
    Commented Aug 31, 2011 at 21:19
5

Well, LinkedIn isn't there any longer, but the capitalization on Facebook and Twitter should be correct after the next build, matching the other places they're used in the site.

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  • Thanks, Nick. This time 6-8 weeks = 6-8 months :)
    – Hugo
    Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 16:58

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