> Having someone who makes nothing and shares nothing log on to tell you how you should have done things differently is unwanted and not at all useful.

Just saying the work sucks is unproductive. When giving criticism I try my best to give productive feedback. For example if two colors clash in a way that doesn't work for me, I try to explain what it is about it that makes me feel that way, and maybe come up with some alternatives or variations to further explain what I'm trying to convey. Similar when reviewing text or code etc.

I also try to chose my words so that I don't sound demanding. I'm conveying my point of view, it is up to the receiver to decide what they want to do with it.

In any case I also always end with something positive. If I can't find _anything_ genuinely positive to say, I'll drop the whole thing and not say anything.

Of course in certain settings I have to be more authoritative. For example if I'm mentoring a new programmer on the team who just wrote some really bad code, that code needs to go and I can't skip talking about it. But I still try to follow the above as best as I can.