What is the best way to get extra clarification on a question, when you feel like you can't give a thoughtful answer without more information from an OP?

You can only lead a horse to water…

I think when some questions are asked, the OP never returns…
You have to factor that in too.

Every person has a connection to everyone. Sometimes that connection is stronger or weaker. Think bread vs. gyro. Sometimes the person is your corndog and if lucky the cornbread.

It is like the transitive property of cornbread. You hope someone comes along and can translate the question into blueberry muffins.

Think eye sparkles…......

Yeah, I guess the only way is to hope that someone other than the OP can figure out what is being asked on a Q. I’ve seen so many Q’s recently, where the language used in the question didn’t make sense, and when we’ve asked for clarification, none was offered.

Sometimes the OP thinks the question is perfectly clear but it actually doesn’t make that much sense. And when you question them they feel annoyed because they think you have reading conprehention problem. Sometimes the OP actually just wants confirmation, and when you don’t give them what they want they get pissed off.

And there is no guarantee that you can get them to understand what you’re getting at.

Sometimes, you just have to accept that some people just don’t see things the way you do and there’s no way you can change it.

Trying to change people rarely works. There is no best way to get clarification other than trying to push further and hope for the best. I try to make my question as clear as possible and be on the lookout for further questions for clarification, that’s all I can do on my part to help save people from frustration.

^Perfect answer.

What @MrGrimm888 said about horses and what @Mimishu1995 said as well. I get frustrated too when the OP won’t (or can’t) clarify or when a Q is posed and the OP vanishes without clarifying. But there’s nothing we can do except vent or bail.

Mind-reading usually works for me.

However, I realize that the meta-cortices of many humans aren’t sufficiently developed for remote protofocusing. ;-o

I just answer a different question – sometimes in the same thread – as is my wont.

@CWOTUS My questions sometimes get removed (rather than just having specific comments modded) which is exactly what happened to my last question. It’s kind of ironic, considering that another Jelly desperately wanted their Q removed, but almost everyone told them it was impossible to get a Q removed. If the Mods don’t like your Q (or enough Jellies behind the scenes are not happy with your Q, even if it spells out an ugly truth) it will be removed, and nobody will be the wiser.