This advice ("avoid unspecified pronouns") also applies to communicating in text, period. SMS, IRC, Slack, in all of them you can avoid a lot of confusion by b

This advice ("avoid unspecified pronouns") also applies to communicating in text, period. SMS, IRC, Slack, in all of them you can avoid a lot of confusion by being clear in your nouns. BAD: "We're hooking up the refresh token to the API next week. It was broken by a bad commit, but that is fixed" GOOD: "We're hooking up the refresh token to the API next week. The token was broken by a bad commit, but that commit is fixed" This advice is one of the two most important tips for clear communication in text I know of. The other tip is: don't ask an A or !A question - you'll just get "yes" or "no" as an answer. Instead, ask to confirm A and not B. BAD: "Are we releasing this week? Or next week?" GOOD: "We are releasing this week, not next week, right?" This second tip, however, requires a lot more work to make natural.