Can Pylint error checking be customized?

As said by cfedermann, you can specify messages to be disabled in a ~/.pylintrc file (notice you can generate a stub file using pylint --generate-rcfile if you don't want to use inline comments.

You'll also see in the generated file, in the [BASIC] section, options like "method-rgx", "function-rgx", etc. which you can configure as you like to support camel cases style rather than pep8 underscore style.

You can globally disable warnings of a certain class using

pylint --disable=W1234

or by using a special PyLint configuration file

pylint --rcfile=/path/to/config.file

A sample config file is given below:

[MESSAGES CONTROL]
# C0111 Missing docstring 
# I0011 Warning locally suppressed using disable-msg
# I0012 Warning locally suppressed using disable-msg
# W0704 Except doesn't do anything Used when an except clause does nothing but "pass" and there is no "else" clause
# W0142 Used * or * magic* Used when a function or method is called using *args or **kwargs to dispatch arguments.
# W0212 Access to a protected member %s of a client class
# W0232 Class has no __init__ method Used when a class has no __init__ method, neither its parent classes.
# W0613 Unused argument %r Used when a function or method argument is not used.
# W0702 No exception's type specified Used when an except clause doesn't specify exceptions type to catch.
# R0201 Method could be a function
# W0614 Unused import XYZ from wildcard import
# R0914 Too many local variables
# R0912 Too many branches
# R0915 Too many statements
# R0913 Too many arguments
# R0904 Too many public methods
disable=C0111,I0011,I0012,W0704,W0142,W0212,W0232,W0613,W0702,R0201,W0614,R0914,R0912,R0915,R0913,R0904,R0801

See the documentation over at Pylint's dedicated site.