<p>I can answer 20% of why this question was closed, being one of the five close voters. The question has been edited since, and may well be edited again, so I won't make a running commentary on whether I think the <em>current</em> state of the question deserves to be reopened.</p>

<p>Here is my general thought process about question clarity, which I ran through when looking at the question.</p>

<ol>
<li>In principle a question should be clearly and unambiguously stated in the self-contained text of the question itself. This includes the title &mdash; if the title and body ask for different things, I would urge the original poster (OP) to urgently clarify what they want and may vote to close.</li>
<li>Nevertheless, the OP often reveals what they <em>really</em> want in the comments. Therefore, if the <em>totality</em> of the OP's question and comments are unclear or contradictory, I would vote to close even if the original question was clear in its own right (because if the OP has asked an apparently clear question but this is not what they intended to ask, they need to go back and edit; if the question was left as it is then the thread of questions and contradictory comments will cause confusion to future readers).</li>
<li>I generally think unclear or confusing questions should be closed as quickly as possible. This approach may sound aggressive, but it is not my wish to remove such questions altogether &mdash; just to give breathing space for editing and clarification to occur. <em>By the time different answers start appearing, interpreting the question in different ways, a thread can degenerate very quickly.</em> If the thread is left up for future public consumption, readers are going to find it a nightmare to find the information they were searching for. If a question (and comments) are unclear to me, they are likely to also mystify the future readers that this site should be doing its utmost to cater for.</li>
<li>I remain somewhat cautious about deeming questions unclear if that might be because I don't understand something, but someone with more expertise in an area would understand it immediately. If I see someone I know is a subject expert commenting on the thread, I will pay heed to their opinion.</li>
</ol>

<p>In this case, on point (1) the question had a clear title and I thought it had the potential to be a nice little question. But the body of the question did not define its terms clearly. On point (2), if you read the comments, there are clear contradictions between the question body and statements by the OP about what situation they are dealing with. On point (3), the question's lack of clarity has already attracted an answer that the OP was unsatified with. (4) The fact that Prof. Xi'an thought what the OP was after (looking at both question <em>and</em> comments) was "impenetrable" was conclusive enough that it "wasn't just me".</p>
