[Brystephor]

> I'm not sure their example of "improved" short-form messaging improves things much

The bad short form message is bad because 1) it's ambiguous and 2) it has a short lifespan. By lifespan, I mean the time that a message can be read and can be useful.

Using terms such as "it" and "she" leave a lot of ambiguity. If you read the message 7 days later, 1 day later, maybe even an hour later, all context of what "it" is and who "her" is could be lost.

Using names instead of "it"/"her" means you can read the message 24 hours later, maybe even a week later and still understand what it was, or at least it gives you more information to figure out what the context was.

In short: I think the improved message is significantly better than the first.

> The terser the better.

In general I agree with this. I have no evidence but I'd bet some people prefer the conversational message over the status update. Again, it depends on the context. If it's a status update, make it a status update. If it's a conversation, let it be one.