In general, DeArrow titles and thumbnails should provide enough information so that a viewer can make an informed decision on whether they should choose to watch the video. Sensationalism should be avoided.
Note that, in these guidelines, "clickbait" is being used as a neutral term referring to any materials used to convince someone to click on a link.
Titles are supposed to give you a good description of what's going to happen in the video.
Prefer a descriptive subject or a statement over questions. In many cases, this makes it easier to see what the video is actually about.
However, for open-ended questions, leaving it that way is fine.
Avoid using titles where some interesting information is intentionally left out to get the viewer's interest.
Avoid trying to emphasize certain words by using tricks like surrounding them with another character (like *emphasized*) or setting them into SHOUTING CASE.
Avoid telling the viewer how they should react to the video. Note that is different from a title for a video about someone reacting to something else.
Prefer actual information over simply telling the premise of the video, when possible. This should not end up spoiling the video.
Titles should not be written in the third person about the video creator, unless absolutely necessary. They should rather be in first person, or, preferably, in a passive voice describing the video. Ideally, it should be a completely neutral description; however, this is sometimes not possible.
Titles should not be overly long, as this can severely reduce its readability. However, a more descriptive title should still be preferred over a shorter one.
All titles should be written in the language that the video itself is in. If the video contains text or spoken parts in multiple languages, either the main one or the language of the audience should be used.
For fiction pieces, such as short films or art pieces, feel free to leave titles be if they serve the mood, even if they are generic. Sensational titles can be changed or reformatted.
If the song is a mashup between two or more songs and doesn't already have an original title, the song titles should be separated with a slash (ie. Song One / Song Two).
The thumbnail should be chosen to help you know what kind of video you are about to watch, what it'll look like, what it will be like to watch it, etc.
All submitted titles should be in Sentence case (explained below). This is important even if you have personally selected another case in the options. Of course, any words that would normally be capitalised should remain that way. Proper nouns or the word "I" in English are an example. In other languages, it's possible that every noun is capitalised.
All titles (original and custom) are run through a formatter to convert to the user's casing choice. If there are issues with the formatter, you can force words to "keep formatting" by adding a right angle bracket (>) in front of the word, such as >word.
Almost Every Word is Capitalised.
The first word of the title is capitalised.
Similar to APA format's definition of sentence case, the first letter of a subtitle should be capitalised as well, such as after a hyphen, colon, or pipe (-, :, or |, respectively)[1]
| Examples |
|---|
Episode name | Series name notation – Season subtitle | Arc number – Subtitle
Episode name | Series name notation
|
|If a title exists, it should always be the first element.
Additional metadata for series should be arranged descending in hierarchy, separated with |[Example 1].
S#:E#:P#If there are seasons and episodes defined by the creator, they should be formatted as S#:E#:P#. # is a placeholder for the number in the series here.
P# is optional, if a single episode is separated into multiple parts.
Zero-padding (S01) the number should follow the existing style or convention of the channel.
Season-less, standalone episodes should be denoted only with E#[Example 2].
Episode-less, standalone videos should be denoted with an unabbreviated Part[Example 3].
Shows without seasons or that are solely based on date should be formatted according to ISO8601, which is YYYY-MM-DD[Example 4]
Variations such as YYYY-DD-MM or YY-MM-DD are not allowed, since they are ambiguous.
–If there a subtitle to the series or episode, it should be separated with a hyphen (-) or an en dash (–) before the hierarchy separator[Example 5].
()If there is any additional metadata, it should be included in parentheses ((...)) at the end of the relevant part of the title, before the hierarchy separator[Example 6].
Additional metadata can be:
(ft. John Doe)(any%) (blindfolded)(BTS)Call of Duty Modern Warfare (2019)| Episode Title | Series Name | Season # | Season Subtitle | Episode # | Part # | Arc # | Arc Subtitle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deception Derby | District Transport | 1 | Unseen Fender | 4 | 2 | 1 | Chaos Surcharge |