Forum:CT Archive/Punctuation in image captions

It was recently made known to me that punctuating image captions has no basis in policy or consensus. Hence this CT. My objective with this thread is not to create or amend a policy, but rather to see where consensus lies.

I personally feel captions look far better when punctuated (more "professional," in a way). It is also widely used on Wikipedia, although I am aware that We Are Not Wikipedia.

This is not a very complicated issue, so let us skip directly to the vote/debate. --Imperialles 11:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Punctuate image captions

 * 1) Per my reasoning above. --Imperialles 11:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 2) Sentences end with periods. --  Riffsyphon  1024 11:33, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 3) I agree. It looks much better. * Cylka *  11:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 4) Even if many image captions aren't sentences, this looks better. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 12:26, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 5) See comments. -  JMAS  Hey, it's me! 13:26, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 6) Yay for standardization. -- Darth Culator  (Talk) 13:35, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 7) Graestan ( Talk ) 14:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Comments
If option 2 were to be successful, the whole image caption deal would be left up to the author's preference. --Imperialles 11:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I actually have a question. What if someone doesn't write a sentence? For example just writes the name if it's a portrait shot. I know it might be nit-picky, but it's better to settle this now, because eventually someone (there's always a few) will cause problems. * Cylka *  11:42, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * A caption is a caption, regardless of its length. Thus, if longer captions are punctuated, shorter captions should be as well. That's how I see things, anyway. --Imperialles 11:54, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Works for me. Like I said, better ask now than later. It seems like there's been a lot of policy interpretation issues lately. * Cylka *  12:16, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Fwiw, I believe Wikipedia has a policy that captions shouldn't/don't need to be given a full stop if it's not a full sentence. -- AdmirableAckbar (Talk) 12:26, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that even with incomplete sentences, punctuation looks better. The only exception to this is when it's a simple name with no descriptive. For example. "Nahdar Vebb, Mon Calamari Jedi Knight." though still an incomplete sentence, gets punctuation, but a simple "Nahdar Vebb", with no other descriptive, does not. -  JMAS  Hey, it's me! 13:26, 24 December 2008 (UTC)