Vote to close as "not enough information provided"?

Question

This question was asking why we currently close as "unclear what you are asking" when a question doesn't give enough information:

Lots of "unclear what you're asking" close votes

The answers there clearly explain why, i.e. we want questions to be answerable. So far, so good.

However, I feel like there should be a better option for this. Sometimes indeed a question is clear and understandable, but the OP didn't provide enough information. Even worse, sometimes OP doesn't respond even after someone asks for the output of a command or something.

I think there should be an option that specifically explains the closure is due to the OP not providing enough information like log entries, software version, etc.

Ideally there should be something that we could use to VTC immediately when a question lacks sufficient information, but is still written in clear English. Currently, I am a bit reluctant to VTC immediately as "unclear" if OP doesn't provide information because I feel like I should mention it first, before using a closing reason that is about clarity rather than completeness.

I know other communities follow a different approach. For instance, on ServerFault a question of mine got closed as "unclear" basically each time I edited it, until some mod was happy that I added enough log files. But IMHO this "insta-closing" approach cannot work here until we write a better wording for "your question is incomplete, please edit it as you were asked to do in the comments".

"Unclear what you are asking" is better for the "What do you want to accomplish? Your goal is not comprehensible" kind of questions.

What is the community consensus on this?

Answer 1

I guess my objection to your proposal is that I see no functional difference in terms of site management, as well as plenty of grey area, between the two kinds of unclear you describe.

An unclear question is one that requires further input from OP to become answerable. It doesn't seem to me to make any difference whether it's unclear because it's poorly written, or because it fails to include necessary information - the effect is the same.

The problem I do see is that when we need the OP to fix their question, we should comment to at least give them a hint on how to make their question clear, if we can, and that does not happen often enough imho. I'm guilty of voting to close as unclear without commenting myself, especially when I'm unsure of how to get the required information, but there are probably salvageable questions lost that way.

Answer 2

Clarity is different from completeness

The current explanation shown when a question is closed as unclear what you are asking is confusing if it's used under incomplete questions.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines clear as:

able to be understood

Dictionary.com defines complete as:

having all parts or elements; lacking nothing; whole; entire; full

Example of "unclear"

Posts like this one should be considered unclear:

When I boot my computer, it shows this icon. [Picture]

This kind of question is unclear because the goal of OP cannot be understood. Actually, this is a (made-up) example of a post that doesn't even contain a question. Therefore it should be closed using the current reason:

Please clarify your specific problem or add additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it’s hard to tell exactly what you're asking. See the How to Ask page for help clarifying this question.

Emphasis is mine. This close reason makes sense because OP did not clarify what is the goal.

Example of "incomplete"

Conversely, a post like this one should be considered incomplete:

I have a problem with WiFi dongle model [X], the connection drops after a few minutes, my Ubuntu version is [Y]. How do I get a stable connection?

This kind of question should not be considered unclear because the goal of OP can be understood. However, if it lacks relevant details like the output of lsusb for instance, it should be closed using a different reason like additional details required.

I suggest wording similar to this, inspired from Server Fault:

Questions seeking configuration or diagnostic help must include the specific problem or error and sufficient information about the configuration and environment to reproduce it. Please provide additional details and output required in the comments, if any.

Also, comments asking for this additional information should be left whenever possible.

Answer 3

One close reason is fine, but we should clarify it

There is no need to differentiate between unclear questions and incomplete questions when closing. However, the wording should be tweaked a bit because now we are only focusing on unclear question (i.e. those where the goal of the OP cannot be understood).

Server Fault has much better wording that could serve as inspiration for our revamped unclear or incomplete close reason:

Questions seeking installation, configuration or diagnostic help must include the desired end state, the specific problem or error, sufficient information about the configuration and environment to reproduce it, and attempted solutions. Questions without a clear problem statement are not useful to other readers and are unlikely to get good answers.

We should probably be a bit less strict on the "attempted solutions" when dealing with beginners having complicated issues.