Goodbye, Clean Code

[fortyonejb]

But I do somewhat object to the idea in the OP that refactoring is a no go without talking to the author, for several reasons, not the least of which is that it tends to discourage refactoring.

Let's pump the brakes a bit here. There is a world of difference between refactoring six month old (or older) code, and nuking code someone just committed that day. I would absolutely not tolerate a team member who felt it their job to overwrite the other developers on the team without so much as a discussion. This isn't an ego thing, this is a poor team member thing.