[savanaly]

Every single time I do a code review I find myself noticing a lot of little style mistakes (and, not to be overconfident, I could be mistaken myself about that) and don't leave a comment because I don't want to be that guy that no one wants to review their code and gives one a major headache because I care more about the consistency than does the person I'm reviewing.

In other words, I might restrain myself from criticism out of my compassion for my coworkers. The definition of "ruthless" according to Google is "having or showing no pity or compassion for others," so it's a fine term to describe how I'm not-- and how this company is determined to be.

[mkozlows]

As a team, decide how much you care. Some teams won't care much at all, and will follow a "hey as long as it works" attitude. Other teams will be deeply interested in making their code as good as it could be, and will want comments about doing things more cleanly or elegantly and will view PR review as a chance to learn and improve.

As long as everyone's on the same page, and sharing the same attitude, that drive to improve will come across as a positive thing rather than a jerk move. But if you're the one person with that attitude on a team of good-enoughers, yeah, not so much.

[parennoob]

Yeah I think this kind of thing is a teamwide preference. If you prefer very rigid styling and enforce a style checker, great – that can be put into a script which you compulsorily run before review.