What's the rationale for putting on hold and not simply edit it?
I don't like to waste my time. We could guess at the OP's intent and try to salvage a question out of the mess that was posted. But why should we? The majority of really low-quality questions are fire-and-forgot: the OP is never seen again. Questions that are both poor in content and poorly written are confusing, often duplicates, very often off-topic and almost always add no value to the site.
The unclear close vote is a sign to the OP that he should improve his question or comment with additional details so we can establish:
- what his question is
- whether it's on-topic
Only then should we actually proceed to improving the question and voting to re-open. The reason the question closes in the meantime is to prevent answers that aren't answers which end up restricting our ability to redefine the question. This is how the close system is supposed to work!
In the words of Denis de Bernardy:
Please stop being a care bear, and proceed to be harsher at once.
Keep in mind that Stackexchange is not a help forum, it's supposed to be a repository of useful Q&A. Anything that isn't of use to future readers and can't be salvaged should summarily closed and downvoted. Workplace has a huge problem with user being too welcoming or defensive of bad posts. The subject matter has a lot to do with that: in most questions we're discussing people's livelihood after all. But you can be kind and welcoming to new users while still respecting the Q&A framework and without encouraging bad posts. Comment on the question to explain to the OP why his post is a bad fit or unclear but vote to close it at the same time!
As inspired by Denis de Bernardy, this is what you should be doing for poor questions:
- Unintelligible question? Close as unclear.
- Can't find a question? Close as unclear.
- Can't tell what the core question is? Close as unclear.
- Too many questions? Close as too broad.
- Just a rant? Close as off-topic.
- ...
A close vote is not a super down vote, but must close votes should be accompanied by a downvote! This allows the system to automatically clean up closed questions.