[Mageia-discuss] Cultural difference: "Let your yes be yes" <---> "It is rude to say no"

[andre999]

Johnny A. Solbu a écrit :
> On Friday 13 July 2012 04:47, andre999 wrote:
>    
>> Don't forget that often people will say yes because they would like to
>> do something, without seriously considering the various demands on their
>> time.  They think it is a good idea, and they want to contribute.  (I
>> tend to be somewhat like that.)
>>      
> That is completely different from what sparked this discussion. There is a big difference in accepting a job with the intent to do it, and later on finding that you can't do it, and accepting it just because one have problems saying "No", with no intent of doing it. It is the latter I have talked about.
>
>    
Not as I read the original post.
Did the person mean "yes, I have the time and will definitely do it",
  or "yes, I would like to do it",
  or "yes, I might do it",
  or "yes, I think it is a very good idea that somebody do it" ?
Often the person saying "yes" doesn't even know what type of yes they 
are giving, because they haven't really thought about what was involved 
in doing it.
So how can others know ?
What Marja seems (to me) to be asking is that we have consideration that 
the person saying "yes" wasn't, for whatever reason, as committed to 
doing it as we might have thought.
And not to react by blaming them.

Don't forget, we are not necessarily talking about well-defined tasks.  
Contributions are often start out fairly vague, refined over time.

And often, out of politeness, we ask "would you like to do ...".
So what does "yes" mean then ?

-- 
André