I don't think there's a native English speaker in the world who reads the phrase "<x> is garbage" and interprets that literally as "this is just a metaphor for deciding not to use something and thus throwing it out." No, there's always vitriol, and the writer knows that, which is why they say it like that--because they're feeling vitriolic.
I'm sure you can imagine equally accurate ways to reject code contributions; it doesn't really take any creativity. When you say that the "true meaning" is lost, what you're really saying is the true meaning was to make the contributor feel bad. If you want to defend that, go ahead, but that intent needs to be out in the open, not hidden behind the plausible deniability of words.
I'm sure you can imagine equally accurate ways to reject code contributions; it doesn't really take any creativity. When you say that the "true meaning" is lost, what you're really saying is the true meaning was to make the contributor feel bad. If you want to defend that, go ahead, but that intent needs to be out in the open, not hidden behind the plausible deniability of words.