Talk:List of poems by Philip Larkin

Presentation
Since the date order still works when you sort by date, that's a good solution, much more elegant. Adding the detail is taking longer than I thought, but should be done in the next couple of days  Almost - instinct 08:19, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't sure what to do with the link I had in the footnote for "We met at the end of the party". Now its rather lost which is a shame because the article linked to contains - legitimately - the full text of the poem, which isn't otherwise available. Maybe a link to it in the poem's line in the table, in the 3rd column, after "Uncollected"?  Almost - instinct 14:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok, modified. Snowman (talk) 15:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

As per The North Ship I've made a start removing the double inverted commas for the list and added the single-inverted commas for those untitled poems that are known by their opening lines. IMO it looks a lot neater – and will also allow us to us to remove the line explaing what the upper and lower cases mean. I intend to do the rest of the list later on...  almost - instinct 11:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Major problem with the new italics: the sort does not work. When the sort is pressed on that column there is an alphabetical list for the poems with a title and below another alphabetical list beginning with A again for the poems without a title. Probably best to think of new method. A fourth column could say "yes" if the poem has a title. Snowman (talk) 18:29, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

1. IMO since the list is in alphabetical order already its a minor problem 2. IMO having a Yes/No column would be uglier than what we have now  almost - instinct 18:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I think it is messed up and much too confusing. People might will look at the upper half of the table and see only the upper list with many poems missing. Snowman (talk) 18:53, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What about putting dots after first lines...., which indicants that the rest of the poem follows. Changes to the alphabetical sorting will not be affected by additions suffixed. I think that will look ok, and it is sort-of self explanatory (although it should be included in the table key). Snowman (talk) 19:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've sent brief messages to Keith D, Linuxlad and Red Sunset for their opinions. One further reason I have for wanting to retain the single inverted commas is that that is how those poems are always listed in the Faber and Faber volumes, both contents pages and indexes  almost - instinct 19:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * But the wiki has its own formatting rules and those funny inverted commas are not standard here. They also ruin the alphabetical sort by wrongly producing two separate alphabetical lists. One alphabetical list is above the other after selecting and clicking on the table sort; one list is produced for the lines that start with a funny inverted comma and the other list is produced for the ones that start with a letter. There should be just one list. That is two reasons why they should be removed, and I do not think they look that good, and as I commented before they are difficult to see. Snowman (talk) 19:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Why not use a hidden sort character on the name to sort in alpha order? See Help:Sorting for details. Keith D (talk) 19:39, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Good thinking, but AFAIK it will still not be in standard wikiformat; see Manual of Style (titles). Quite a lot of extra text will be needed to add hidden text code on every line where it is used. Also hidden text takes up space on the rendered wiki page although it is not shown, so all the other lines where hidden text is not used will need padding to look in line. I am not sure of the effects of a non-proportional font. All this for funny inverted commas that are difficult to see. Snowman (talk) 21:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * It would be simpler than this using the display:none format rather than the format I was thinking about to paint the text the same colour of the background. The display:none format does not take up any space on the screen and so would not need any padding. However, it is a lot of text to add to the large table, and I do not think that the presentation would have been as tidy as the ellipses. Snowman (talk) 09:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

To be fair I changed from 'Inverted commas' to ‘Inverted commas’ to make them easier to see.  almost - instinct 20:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * PS I got them from the first line of characters given under the edit window"– — … ‘ “ ’ ” ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − × ÷ ← → · §"so they're not exactly non-standard for wiki  almost - instinct 20:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No strong feelings I'm afraid - WP is weak in this area (We have 'academics of the univ of Hull', Hull Univ academics (?or similar!), Poetry of Phillip Larkin (a cat. of my creation), all making a small contribution to knowledge only!) Follow the crowd I think. Linuxlad (talk) 20:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Are there other pages that uses this character in this way? Snowman (talk) 21:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


 * My first choice would be to use a hidden sortkey as suggested by Keith D, and keep the inverted commas per Faber & Faber with an explanatory note to indicate their meaning. I don't think it would fall foul of MoS titles. Without the hidden sortkey, nothing can precede the 1st letter of the line without messing up the alpha sort, and Snowman's idea of putting an ellipse after first lines (with a note) would IMHO be the next best solution, and would look a bit tidier too. --Red Su ns et    22:19, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * But it is not MOS style. My suggestion was to put three or four dots (not an ellipse) after the first lines or to use an extra column. Have you seen how much extra code is needed for hidden text on every line where it is needed? Snowman (talk) 22:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I was just striking my initial preference in favour of Snowman's suggestion. I don't think an extra column would be useful, but what's wrong with an ellipse? --Red Su ns et    22:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not understand what you mean by an ellipse other than: x2/a + y2/b = c # There is also space considerations and padding if hidden text (which takes up space but is not shown) is going to be used. Snowman (talk) 23:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I think Ellipsis is what is meant  almost - instinct 23:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have never heard them called that before. I am glad that you wikilinked it using the correct spelling. Table modified with ellipsises (pleural). Snowman (talk) 23:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I beg your pardon, it was getting late and I was blind to the fact that I'd written ellipse instead of ellipsis. Thanks for explaining it Almost-instinct. The table is IMHO tidy and functional now. (The pleural is "ellipses" BTW.) --Red Su ns et    17:24, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * btw while looking up ellipsis in my dictionary today (can never remember which letter is the doubled one) I discovered that an alternate name is ... ellipse. So, all in all, all three of us were correct ;-)  almost - instinct 22:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

1988 vs 2003
1988 contains everything. This is identified on the page. 2003 contains only poems published by Larkin during his lifetime ie there is nothing in 2003 that isn't in 1988. By changing all the "2003" to "1988" as IP did this differentiation is impossible. I shall try to improve the wording at the top of the article to make this clearer.  almost - instinct 14:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Quote marks
All the quote marks did was clutter the table. We know that they're poems - it says "poems" at the top of the column, the page is called "list of poems". Adding the quote marks neither improves our understanding, nor the appearance. Hence my undo. Yours, 08:38, 13 March 2014 (UTC)