I think I watched parts of that video before. It is interessting (well, as interessting as such talk can be) but it applies to a different world.
You seem to see as cases of talented developers who sometimes flip out, like an eccentric professor or so? I think that does not quite fit.
Words like "highly productive" and "gets stuff done" really should be looked at closer.
It is possible to highly productively work on something but still learn nothing.
Learn how to fold a origami paper duck.
Fold one every day, for years.
Soon you can make paper ducks without even looking at your hands.
People will be impressed that your whole house is filled with ducks.
But at the end, what did you really do?
Typed "paper duck how to" into youtube, followed the instructions and repeated a boring, manual task over and over.
No question, there is an some sort of effort in that. And the first duck was difficult to make. But:
Did you understand why the paper ends up in that shape?
Can you now fold other animals?
Do you know what makes a good paper airplane?
Did you thumb-down the video for its lame music?
...
If you have already gotten the point then stop reading here.
Now comes the boring part.
It is similiar with spring modding.
One can spend years working on a spring mod while still learning nothing.
A bit creativity is still possible:
Today we make a
red paper duck!
Oh look: It is yomomma paper duck made from a bigger piece of paper.
If you do not want to evolve beyond that, then fine with me, not my problem.
But please, do not discuss about the process off paper production and its environmental effects with your only references being how many paper ducks you have at home.
In case of spring modding that would for ex. mean being able to look up info for unit/weapon/whatever defination files, being able to make at least simple new units-scripts. Being able to read the changelog/wiki for engine changes and update your game based on the instructions given there.
Reading a tutorial when given link. To me it is a bit lazy to not learn these things, often they really are not difficult, I do not judge on that.
Anyway, I am bored of writing this analogy and to wrap this up quickly:
Forboding Angel lacks basic skills, knowledge and the will to read beginner tutorials even on things that would benefit him. But has made lots of paper ducks.
I would have no problem if he did not act like he had bio-engineered an immortal duck that ends worldhunger by being reborn everytime it gets eaten and if he did not scream so loud every time when finding a paper where the corner is crumbled up a bit...
So hostility is something we cant afford any longer. So we either have to cull it, contain it or we accept that spring will always have this troll-town surrounded by a villages of seperate project forums. Looking at 0 ad, one can see that projects actually can be run different. Actually, the c++ core dev team runs on quite a nicer tone.
On the c++ engine dev team there is nobody who needs to throws a fit of rage because he does not understand loops and has never read a c++ tutorial.
That would be seen as bizarre.
Ultimately it comes down to that in other projects people know what they are doing.
What we have here is a
very special edge case scenario, usually such people are quickly found out to be trolling or get bored. Or after a bad start they learn the skills needed to do whatever they want to do.