Just curious why you chose to truncate a few lines away from the finish, rather than simply pasting the poem in its entirety? Was it because the last few lines take a vaguely-religious turn, and you thought the audience here would be hostile? I have no strong opinion either way there, I just find the edit interesting.
It's not because I thought the audience would be hostile, but I don't like those last few lines (mainly because of that turn), and think it's a better poem without them. Do you think it's better to leave it intact?
I don't know about StevePerkins, but since I identified the last couple of lines you pasted as derived from The Book of Psalms[1], the poem already seemed to have taken the religious turn. :-)
In the short time I've been reading HN, it's become clear that its readership likes to think of itself as more enlightened than the average mouthbreathing yokel. It doesn't mean they don't have their own orthodoxy, though, and religion is one of those things We Don't Acknowledge Around Here.
Hell, I'm an atheist and I would have added the last lines anyway[0]. Of course, he didn't attribute the poem to the author anyway so we're supposed to imagine he wrote it, right?[1]
[0]http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html - the first thing I ran across, but at least the author's name is on it. EDIT: hey, he finally did the same google search I did!
I included the link in your zeroeth reference in my original post, well before anyone had replied. I had no intention to take credit for the poem, and assumed most readers here were smart enough to infer authorship from the link I included. Please, a little more charity in interpretation and a little more attention to detail would go a long way in keeping discourse friendly here.
I omitted the last few lines while including an ellipsis to indicate I had done so, and including a link to the original so people could see the full poem (as well as authorship) for themselves. I don't think I changed the meaning of the part I quoted, so I think the omission was fair, though I was conflicted about doing it since there really were only a few more lines remaining.
Your accusation that I deliberately didn't name the author in order to take credit was false and assumes bad faith, especially given that, contrary to your assertion, the link to the full poem with named author was in my original post. I haven't seen a retraction or apology from you for that assertion despite its demonstrable inaccuracy, nothing but the assumption of bad faith and hostility. It's possible to express disagreement without either, which is what has generally made Hacker News discussions great. You can disagree with me without assuming every possible bad thing about me, and with a good faith desire to reach common understanding.
I'll let you get the last word since I don't want to turn this into a flame war, but please be civil. Take care.
"It's not because I thought the audience would be hostile, but I don't like those last few lines (mainly because of that turn), and think it's a better poem without them. Do you think it's better to leave it intact?"
This is the part with which I disagree. Let's just drop the nonattribution that you did indeed fix after the fact.
You said you edited the writing to alter its meaning. Is this not the case? While I was indeed blunt, I was not incorrect in pointing out you took the writing of a noted Lebanese author and removed the lines that offended your sensibilities.
Like I said, I am a nonbeliever. Misquoting (and that is indeed what you did when you removed those three lines) makes you look petty. Take care.
