I would also point that people focus on snarky comments but forget how much value the commenters bring. If you can't equal that just shut up and listen.
"Toxic" is a particular bugbear of mine. I often see references to toxic individuals, or toxic cultures, which seem to use the word as a way of avoiding having to explain what is disagreeable about these individuals or cultures. GP is arguing that toxic individuals make toxic cultures, which is almost tautological and doesn't really explain very much about why this is a bad thing. If the Linux kernel is "toxic" then it would appear that toxicity is no barrier to success in terms of adoption, or benefit to humanity in terms of the quantity of free software distributed to the world. This doesn't appear to make sense, possibly because "toxic" just isn't a great metaphor for whatever GP wants to describe.
If people refer to individuals as toxic, then there is high chance they really are toxic to teh team. It's devastating when these type of high egoistical engineers just cannot find any civilized debate.
There's a reason why women are leaving tech in droves and why there aren't as many African or Latino engineers. The very people who are toxic are often blind to the fact themselves. How many more fine African American engineers being driven out because they couldn't bear the micro-aggression from caucasian workers?
