<p>I understand the need to make questions clear when asking them and agree telling the OP to make the question clearer, if it is not, is a good thing. But can't this be done without locking the ability to post potential answers? </p>

<p>Say for example a question seemed unclear to the mod, but was understood by someone who potentially knew the answer: all that is being achieved by putting the question on hold is stopping the answer from being submitted. And if the question seemed unclear to the mod, and was unclear to someone who did know the answer, then no answer would be submitted anyway, and there would be no need to put the question on hold.</p>

<p>Furthermore as an extension to the first scenario where a potential answer is blocked if the OP did not edit his question or forgot to, then there would be no way of answering the question forever for the potential benefit of all others who might face the same problem, which in my opinion is a gross failure of the philosophy of this website and what it tries to do in helping people through knowledge sharing.</p>

<p>So my question is, what advantage does putting unclear questions on hold actually achieve over just asking the OP to make the question clearer?</p>
