> I also sympathise with Dave Mayall having to repeatedly respond to the "same > old question", and greatly admire his patience. His recent "sorry to sound > terse" response asked why should he go to the bother of preparing a > statement and for someone else to put it on the web ....etc. I have read > the statement on several occasions and always finish with the same > impression, - "Full-Stops are Insignificant, and it is too easy for a > beginner to be confused and get it wrong". > > The first two paragraphs of the statement are fine but from then on he > explains the checking processes and how unimportant missing full-stops are - > "a full-stop is down at the VERY bottom of errors..." (Dave's words and > emphasis, not mine!) The thing is that it is true! I'm not about to say it's a major error (it isn't), but it is an error all the same. For the record, what gets me REALLY irritated is not that people disagree with the policy, but that time and again, they argue against the policy on spurious grounds. IF we were saying that full stops were important because it was vitally important that we display them to people searching the database, I wouldn't mind people discussing it on that basis. We don't though. We actually explain that we use the full stops as a checking point to verify the degree of match between two entries, yet still people want to argue a point we never made!