I choose to use this question as an example arguing for assistance. We're a relatively small community and I think we may be at risk of driving off people who will be productive users by being too quick and terse in our "not a question" "no citation" style comments. Sure if someone has 500+ rep, that's cool. But, for newer users, would it not be more to our benefit to create a tradition of helping them get started... especially with questions?
After all, the premise is experts answering questions posed by less-than-experts. If we presume that someone is not an expert skeptic, we should presume that they might not know the correct way to phrase a skeptics question.
Yeah, it's a gradient, and some questions are a lost cause. But some questions are from someone trying to express a skeptical viewpoint and just using poor phrasing.
clarify meaning without changing it
, correct minor mistakes and such. But often the question may tend in the one way or the other. (Great Flood - is it about proving the bible is right, or is it just about a weather phenomena?) Imho, the first try should be to ask the person who opened it for improvement, and to do that, it is nice to point in detail on what is wrong, than to use a generic phrase and closing it. – user unknown Mar 25 '11 at 14:31