Forum:Consensus: Full stops (period)

Hi all. Been a little while since I did one of these so I hope you haven't missed them too much. Pleasantries aside, I want to get to the point.

I've noticed in a fair few articles (read: most) that there are multiple occasions where a full stop, or 'period' as the Americans' call them are incorrectly used. A recent edit spat on the Assassins, however, is what spurred me to make this thread.

Typically, grammar dictates that a full stop should only really be used at the conclusion of a sentence, which normally contain clauses. A "clause" typically contains at least a subject noun phrase and a finite verb. Unfortunately, there are times when, on this wiki, I have seen a full stop being used incorrectly. For example, I recently removed the full stops from all quotes on the Eagle Vision article; what once read as "Clay Kaczmarek about Eagle Vision." (which is not grammatically correct) now reads properly. The problem is also highly prevalent in photo captions, which are almost never technically a 'sentence'.

That's enough about grammar though, on to the main point of my thread.

The Proposal
I propose that we make amendments to the Manual of Style, and any policies that need it, (we can discuss wording when and if this goes through) that dictates that the full stop should only be used where it is grammatically allowed. This will effectively mean that we will be removing the full stops from quote attributions, image captions, non-sentences in lists (see Assassins article revision change linked above) and anywhere else where they should not exist.

In all honesty, I don't see this as being that big an issue, but a thread is the best way to garner community attention and help maintain any changes that are made. As always, if anybody wants to comment, or make suggestions, or moan that we don't need such a policy, please feel free to do so in the comments section below.

Yay

 * 1) -- 16:14, October 15, 2012 (UTC)