Some questions on the site are down voted (often quite rightly) because the scope is too large, grammar incorrect, or too little information given. However with a little editing the question may actually be quite useful. When down voting a (non-modal) box should appear asking the user if they would like to have a go at editing the question instead. This could potentially increase the volume of quality questions.
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For grammar where the OP's intent can be understood it should be a case of someone editing. If the meat of the question cannot be gleamed a downvote may make more sense, and a comment requesting clarity. Editing the scope of a question can be a challenge, often when someone asks a very broad question it is a case of having not looked into solutions yet.
However, I dislike the popup as having rep to downvote implies that I have been with the site for a decent while, and for the broad case of users whom downvote, they understand the implications.
The important thing here is that they can change their vote if the question is edited. Too large of a question or not enough detail is a close vote type situation and is quickly resolved by the user correcting the question, but another user may not be able to. Poor grammar is very case by case, and although it happens, it is not very common for that to be a major case of downotes in my opinion, and would prefer not have the spam about edits.
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1\$\begingroup\$ I'd like to also note that editing the scope of the question can make it less than useful to the OP. The question is part of the community corpus of knowledge, but an important element of each question is that it's a real problem that someone has faced. Transforming it from a real problem (which is unanswerable as geometrikal described) to a properly scoped one (which answers no real problem) is not useful. \$\endgroup\$– Kevin Vermeer ModCommented Nov 15, 2011 at 12:34
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2\$\begingroup\$ +1. We are not obligated to fix bad questions, and there is good reason not too. If the question is really bad, your edit might make it worse because the original was misunderstood. People that come here for help have a minimum responsibility to write a decent question. Trying to baby them thru what should be a obvious process is just noise here. Sometimes a few comments can get the question fixed. However, we shouldn't apologize or feel bad about downvoting and closing bad questions. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:51