<p>In an ideal world, yes, we would patiently sit down with each poster, discuss what in particular is unclear about their question and guide them to a clear question, which we would then proceed to answer.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, it appears to me like the supply of unclarity is unlimited.</p>

<p>To be honest, we get questions that are so confused that I wouldn't even know where to start asking for clarifications. And my bitter experience is that sometimes when you <em>do</em> ask, the "clarifications" confuse me even more. In addition, sometimes the OP seems to have way more time to write up obfuscating "clarifications" than I have to deal with them.</p>

<p>And if I wrote the original request for clarification, I feel like I should deal with the follow-up discussion, which can take way more time than I have. Rarely do I request clarification, the OP provides it, and a <em>different</em> user answers the now-clarified question. (I may need to work on this notion of mine that commenting on a question confers some kind of "ownership" of it on me.)</p>

<p>So I personally will continue working CV as I have been doing: if the original question gives me hope that it <em>can</em> be clarified reasonably quickly (as in: the OP obviously invested <em>some</em> effort to create a decent question, <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/353599/1352">as, e.g., here</a>), then yes, I will comment and ask for clarification. Questions where I fear a fruitless time sink I will continue to close-vote without explanations (no examples here, but yes, I could provide them). For time is limited.</p>

<p>Based on a completely non-scientific survey of my close votes queue, it seems like others on this site proceed in the same way.</p>

<p>Yes, this is a classification problem, and Peter notes that some questions</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>are completely unclear and it's fairly obvious that they need to be closed.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>However, there is a continuum here. A question may cross the subjective threshold to complete unclarity for one user, but not for another. If I come across a question that someone else has VTC as unclear without leaving a comment, nothing keeps me from providing that comment myself.</p>
