<p>My policy is that I have four tiers of responses:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If it seems that OP didn't put minimal effort to write the question like properly formatting it, doing a trivial Google search, reading it before posting to notice that it does not make logical sense, or checking that the question would be bluntly off-topic, I just vote to close without comment. If the person asking doesn't care, why should I?</p>
</li>
<li><p>If they put in minimal effort, but still the question is an obvious candidate to put on hold, I vote to close and comment.</p>
</li>
<li><p>If they put some effort into asking <em>and</em> the question is fresh, I ask for clarification without voting to close. I try to re-visit and if there was no reaction after several hours, then I vote.</p>
</li>
<li><p>If I feel that OP did put some effort and the question is an edge case, sometimes I try answering it even if it's slightly unclear, near duplicate, or a bit vague. In some cases it works, in others I wonder if I should stop doing this because I learn that the question was unclear enough that I misunderstood it, etc and my answer didn't help at all.</p>
</li>
</ol>
