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"Hey, this looks a little funny, any ideas what you could do to clean it up?" is ambiguous and doesn't help you.

"Hey! This is broken. It doesn't do X, Y, or Z. Please make sure to check code thoroughly (refer to $DOCUMENT) before committing." is direct, tells people what's wrong, and isn't hostile. People will be offended by it, but those people can be made to understand that they are being given useful direct advice.

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Agree. I *hate it when I receive ambiguous criticism, which just means that we'll need to dance around each other while I try to figure out exactly what "looks a little funny".

Getting specific details - instructions or guidance even - is far better to solving the problem efficiently.

The feeling of being offended by such a message diminishes the more it happens, the more you fix and prevent the behaviour, and when you see your role models make similar mistakes, which has a tendency to humanize them.

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