Let me clear up the "basic decency" question for you; bad intentions should be "called out", skill level only needs to be commented on when someone is more less requiring that you to put with their skills. You should encourage people to higher skill levels only after they've asked for the help. Otherwise, they live in their world and if makes them happy, leave them there.

If someone is offering something to the world at large that you don't feel is a very skilled offering, you should shut the fuck up unless you want to seem like an asshole. The reason is both that they aren't hurting you in the least and that if you aren't interacting with them, your ability to judge their skills is going to be limited. Unless they're giving out poisoned candy or something, people who give should be congratulated.

If someone is somehow intentionally annoying, hurting, offending someone else, then it is entirely OK to tell them to stop. Bonuses for being clear and uninflammatory yourself, mandatory if you aren't an involved party.

Politeness? The reply might have be forceful, might have use the word bullshit, but it what way did he offend anyone?

I thought he hit the nail on the head.

It's no body else’s business but your own what you choose to put in GitHub.

Calling someone's writings "bullshit" is pretty much the same as calling someone's code "eye-bleeding" -> "your product is of such low value it's worthless"

Those that claim the genesis of this whole issue is offensive should take equal offense to the "bullshit" line.

I think that is drawing a fairly long bow. I read his use of the word bullshit as effectively saying rubbish, only in a more colourful way.

So to paraphrase the OP I read him as saying:

Rubbish, I don't agree with you and here is a list of reasons why?

I assume that "rubbish" or "bullshit" refer to what the other person said, so when you expand that paraphrase it turns out like this:

"What you said is rubbish. I don't agree with you and here is a list of reasons why."

Now, can you tell me what value there is in the "What you said is rubbish" part? Let's go one step further: what do you lose by omitting that part?

Mind, I'm just as sick as the next guy of the whole "we must never be negative", politically correct thought police that has been taking politeness to unrecognizable and unreasonable extremes. Sometimes there are good reasons to be aggressive or less than polite, but "sometimes" is not the same as "always" or "most of the time" or "as often as I feel like it".

> what do you lose by omitting that part?

Sure, there are many ways the OP could have phrased his response.

Personally, I don't think the approach use to attack someone else's point of view is that important, provided the attack is aimed at the message and not the messenger.

In this case I don't think the OP said anything about the messenger.

I agree with you: "rubbish" is the same as "bullshit". It's still saying "what you've said is worthless".

I don't have a problem with it, but it is the same semantics as what started this whole issue - though he does expand into a list of reasons (which isn't possible on twitter).

I think you are reading too much into the term "bullshit".

Now, granted the word can take on different levels of intensity depending on the circumstances in which it is used.

But it can and is used in general conversation and in that context it means nothing more than "I don't agree with you".

At least that is how the term bullshit is used here in Australia.

I am also Australian. :)

For what it's worth, I think most of the commentors are reading far too much into "this is an eye-bleeding script*.

I've seen people hurt by having what they've said called 'bullshit' by someone they respect; it's capable of emotional harm as well. That being said, let's not walk on eggshells.

One way to see if words are synonyms is to apply them to compound terms. In this case, "bullshit artist" is something that "rubbish artist" isn't.