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I was a bit surprised to discover that using headings is considered "yelling here" (see edit here). I'm familiar with the idea that ALL CAPS is yelling, that's common across the internet standard. But I've never seen references to headings being described as yelling.

If using # (<h1>) headings is yelling and somehow forbidden here, might it be worth engaging with SE to have the CSS of headings shrunk a little.

While the difference for sighted people is just font size, there is a semantic difference between <h1> <h2> and <h3> that may be interpreted by screen readers and anon.

It seems wrong to me to edit down everyone's headings (adjusting the semantics) because we don't like the font size.

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    I normally use ### for headings just because I find the font size for a single # to be massive compared to the actual body text. I don't have a problem if people have a use for the other sizes, especially if they need to actually use different heading sizes for clarity, it's all just personal preference really. Personally I wouldn't consider any of them "yelling" unless context implies it such as a heading that says "# you're all wrong and I'm right"
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 9:57
  • @Mokubai Yeah I don't honestly mind the font size myself. I've developed a bit of a chip on my shoulder about sighted people making things harder for visually impaired people WRT HTML. Coming from the UK I've noticed a trend toward more garish font sizes expense of aesthetics. UK government are a good example (page picked at random). Over time I've adjusted and have come to quite like the direct clarity of it.
    – Philip Couling
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 10:10
  • Out of curiosity, what are the actual differences the you see that make things harder? Not having experience of screen readers I'm interested to know how and why what I might be doing is potentially making things difficult for other people.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 11:51
  • It's just that the semantics get read and presented in a different way. If the person can't see, then formatting can be either stripped our actually spoken out "heading one". So headings are perhaps less of a problem that other things like tables. As sighted people we deal with font size / spacing as being synonymous with the information. For screen readers, they have to extract the HTML and try to communicate it in some other way [or not]... so there's an emphasis on ensuring your HTML syntax conforms to what you want to communicate and use style sheets to handle the size / shape / colour.
    – Philip Couling
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 13:08
  • If you asked 30 active users if the use of a heading in an answer is considered yelling, here at Super User, I doubt you would get 30 identical answers. I certainly don't since yelling requires the use of an escalation mark in the English language. I have been accused of yelling when I make an important word bold, so I am likely, the last person you should listen to.
    – Ramhound
    Commented May 11, 2023 at 20:32
  • Personal view: I prefer ###, unless I need a hierarchy of headings. The reason is I find the font size of # exaggerated and intimidating in comparison to sole normal size. I wouldn't call # yelling though. So I'm with Mokubai. However, if you tell me # is better than ### in case of a flat structure, because of screen readers or so, then I will reconsider.
    – Kamil Maciorowski
    Commented May 12, 2023 at 7:26
  • It's not a problem of headings, it's a problem of users having different interpretations/habits of formatting and 2k+ rep users can just outright edit anything to meet their standards. And that means lack of strict standards for StackExchange. I don't think this is too solvable though, maybe with some advanced AI suggesting formatting in the future
    – Destroy666
    Commented May 12, 2023 at 9:15
  • Regarding the "yelling" thing, IMO, you should talk about the edit summary directly with the editor; I have never seen an edit summary like that before. I have not participated in discussion with the editor; I don't remember seeing comments from them, so it's unclear to me how that edit summary should be understood and what the editor's intention is besides adding something to avoid the default text that shows the number of characters added / removed.
    – Wicket
    Commented May 12, 2023 at 22:15

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