Comment by tduberne

I ask this kind of questions rather often, and rarely have the problem of it being interpreted as #1. Thinking about it, I think there are two things the author missed:

- tone of voice. Any of those can sound really snarky or very interested, depending on intonation.

- history of your interaction with that person. My colleagues (hopefully) know of my tendency to brainstorm out loud, and that I am quick to accept seeing limitations in my proposals. If you have an history of not saying much and not accepting criticism, the initial sentence will come across very differently.

Plus sometimes, the first idea of someone else _really is a good idea and was not considered_ . This happens quite a lot where I work, where people have very diverse backgrounds. Having people avoid saying "obvious" things is really dangerous in multidisciplinary teams.