who said it was rude to use all caps?

Question

this is what yahoo tell's me when i use all caps. who made them the boss?

Answer 1

All caps has been considered rude since the first Internet users designed the e-mail system back in the 70's.
It is not Yahoo, or Hotmail, or Google, or any one else. It is just common courtesy to not yell.
When you want to make a point and emphasize something THEN it is OK to Capitalize. Like I said, it is just common manners, not any sites rule.

Answer 2

Two entries from the Jargon File (a.k.a. The Hacker Dictionary):

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Great Runes n. Uppercase-only text or display messages. Some archaic operating systems still emit these. See also runes, smash case, fold case.

Decades ago, back in the days when it was the sole supplier of long-distance hardcopy transmittal devices, the Teletype Corporation was faced with a major design choice. To shorten code lengths and cut complexity in the printing mechanism, it had been decided that teletypes would use a monocase font, either ALL UPPER or all lower. The Question Of The Day was therefore, which one to choose. A study was conducted on readability under various conditions of bad ribbon, worn print hammers, etc. Lowercase won; it is less dense and has more distinctive letterforms, and is thus much easier to read both under ideal conditions and when the letters are mangled or partly obscured. The results were filtered up through management. The chairman of Teletype killed the proposal because it failed one incredibly important criterion:

"It would be impossible to spell the name of the Deity correctly."

In this way (or so, at least, hacker folklore has it) superstition triumphed over utility. Teletypes were the major input devices on most early computers, and terminal manufacturers looking for corners to cut naturally followed suit until well into the 1970s. Thus, that one bad call stuck us with Great Runes for thirty years.
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Hackers have also developed a number of punctuation and emphasis conventions adapted to single-font all-ASCII communications links, and these are occasionally carried over into written documents even when normal means of font changes, underlining, and the like are available.

One of these is that TEXT IN ALL CAPS IS INTERPRETED AS ‘LOUD’, and this becomes such an ingrained synesthetic reflex that a person who goes to caps-lock while in talk mode may be asked to “stop shouting, please, you're hurting my ears!”.
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Hopefully, that's enough reason for everyone who read this to use all caps sparingly.

Answer 3

It started out in early chat rooms. It was said that when you type in caps it is like you are yelling. So that made it rude because people shouldn't yell.

Who knew?

Hope that helps.

Answer 4

It's hard to read. We use caps and lower case to make the written word easier to understand. By using all caps, or NO punctuation, you are indicating you have so little respect for your reader that they are not worth the effort to follow proper protocol.

It other words, it's rude.

Answer 5

I think it has been a general consenses that all caps is shouting and that shouting is most often rude on the Internet. I think with rule started soon after we were able to use both upper and lower case and were able to send emails to each other.

This rule is wide spread on forums, lists, usenet, etc.

Answer 6

using all caps implies yelling, plus it's harder to read.

why do you want to yell at people you don't even know? Do you walk into a restuarant or a department store yelling at the top of your lungs?
If not, then don't do it here either.

Answer 7

It has been that way since I started using the internet twelve years ago. It is hard on the eyes and is the visual equivalent to yelling.

Answer 8

Haven't got a clue,but when using all caps,it implies you are shouting!

Answer 9

They are the big brother of all transcripts you know very serious business lol

Answer 10

craig n