<p>Some differences of opinion have cropped up concerning how to go about clarifying a less than perfectly formulated question.  Because comment threads on our main site are not the best venue for airing these opinions, please let us discuss them here on meta.  Should people just jump in to provide answers?  Should we prefer first using comments to elicit clarifying information from the OPs and offer answers only when a question becomes unambiguously clear?  How far should we go to help an OP reformulate a highly ambiguous or broad question?</p>

<p>These are important issues for <em>our</em> site that other sites do not confront to such a degree.  They occur because statistical problems often arise out of such ambiguities; people from many disciplines use statistical procedures but do not have the terminology to talk about them; and because people often ask the wrong question at the outset and need guidance to ask the question that really matters.</p>

<p>In replying, please consider also offering your views about how best our community can help improve the questions and the site as a whole by employing its power to upvote, downvote, close, and delete questions.</p>
