For example,
News.Com published an article about demonstrations in Peru.
Should I capitalize 'com' as I did?
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Website (and email) addresses aren't case-sensitive, but they're usually written in all lower case. My advice is to just sidestep the problem presented by your example (for which no hard-and-fast "rule" exists), and rephrase slightly to The website news.com published an article... – FumbleFingers Dec 20 '19 at 17:23
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@FumbleFingersReinstateMonica - That is not, and should not be stated as, a hard-and-fast rule; the domain part of either is mandated by the relevant RFCs to be case-insensitive, but the information after the domain in URLs is allowed to be case-sensitive (that is, example.com/foo and example.com/FOO can refer to different pages [though it is considered very bad practice to do so]), and I believe (not certain) that the mailbox name in an email address ("foo" in "foo@example.com") is permitted to be case-sensitive, though usually it is not. – Jeff Zeitlin Dec 20 '19 at 19:59
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@FumbleFingersReinstateMonica You would advise to not capitalize a domain, right? – Sergey Zolotarev Dec 20 '19 at 20:01
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@FumbleFingersReinstateMonica - A perusal of RFC5322 does not find any requirement for case-insensitivity in mailbox names; it is specified as "domain-dependent", which allows the domain manager to require case-sensitivity. Again, it's generally considered a bad practice to do so, but it is permissible. – Jeff Zeitlin Dec 20 '19 at 20:05
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You should follow the usage of the website itself.
When I try to go to https://news.com, I get redirected to https://www.cnet.com/news, so I wouldn’t use “news.com” at all; I’d use either the C|Net URL that it redirects to, or I’d refer to it as “C|Net news”, leaving “news” as lowercase because it does not appear to be the actual title of the page.
If, however, I go to https://news.com.au, and look at the “About Us” link, I see that they use “Welcome To News.Com.Au” in the title, but in the body text, they have used both “news.com.au” in the middle of a sentence, and “News.com.au” at the beginning of a sentence, so I would not capitalize the “.com.au” when using the “name” of the site, and I would only capitalize “News” if it was at the beginning of the sentence.
answered Dec 20 '19 at 15:55
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1The principle still holds; follow the usage of the site itself. Another example, my personal hobby site is freelancetraveller.com; if I want to refer to the URL, it's "freelancetraveller.com", but if I'm naming the website, it's "Freelance Traveller". Alternatively, I might write "I saw the article on nytimes.com" or "Nytimes.com shows a headline of ...", but I'd be more likely to say "The New York Times' website shows..." – Jeff Zeitlin Dec 20 '19 at 17:30
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1Yes, and when it is, you still follow the usage on the site itself - if the website gives its name as "ZooNews.Example" everywhere in body text on the site, then you refer to it as "ZooNews.Example". – Jeff Zeitlin Dec 20 '19 at 17:46
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2Why? There isn't any standard for any other type of name; you follow the usage of the owner of that name, or, in the absence of any guidance therefrom, you follow the standard conventions of the language you are writing in. Even then, there may be no standard; in English, I've seen the name "de Palma" written at the beginning of a sentence as "De Palma [put down his pen and...]" in one book, and "de Palma [said...]" in another. – Jeff Zeitlin Dec 20 '19 at 19:54
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1There is no straightforward hard rule here. A style guide may provide one, but I doubt it would be something wildly different than the advice in this answer. This answer is absolutely fine. – AIQ Dec 21 '19 at 0:44
