[draw_down]

If it's anything like where I work, some people come in for more ruthlessness than others. Some are more equal than others, if you will. New people or those deemed unworthy will receive the full brunt of scrutiny, to the point of bare-faced pedantry. Those who are golden are given the benefit of the doubt. You can probably tell which one I am. It gets really old to see this time and again, and to see the team pat themselves on the back for being "ruthless".

[cachemiss]

That's a failure of your team lead. Tough code reviews are important, but I don't tolerate people being petty or nasty. We actually train new employees on how we like to do reviews.

If I see people being given the benefit of the doubt, I call out other senior engineers. If I see people ganging up on a new person, I do the same.

A quote I've always heard, is generally when someone talks about how "brutally honest" they are, they enjoy the brutality more than the honesty. I filter for the latter, and come down hard on the former.

[draw_down]

Yeah, I know it is.

[noamsml]

Playing devil's advocate here: The only way to really learn the full ruleset of a team is by undergoing a couple of code reviews in which every issue is pointed out. Once your teammates see you've understood the prevailing style, they don't have to work as hard at code reviews.

That said, I usually hate petty/nitpicky code reviews. I try to focus only on issues that I think affect readability, maintainability or functionality.

[Niksko]

Makes sense, but there are ways of being even petty and nitpicky without being condescending or rude. State facts, don't throw insults, don't demean or belittle.

[coredog64]

One good rule I was given by a tech lead is to not use the word "you" in the PR comments. PR comments are a discussion on the failure of the code, not of the individual. Avoiding "you" allows for some separation between the two.

[cachemiss]

I always use "we", and I almost always phrase things as a question.

Example: "So we are doing X here, which I think will probably do Y, which could have adverse affects Z, are we sure we want to do this?"

[draw_down]

The point is that two different people can post the same code and get starkly different reviews. Senior people get a thumbs-up emoji, others get tedium and pedantry. So you can tell that it's not really about the code.