Firstly, I would say that you probably did not read the FAQ called How to Ask a Good Question. It basically tells you what "context" means as well as how to provide it. It is also shown to every new asker (and it is their responsibility to read it).
After collecting little experience in MSE, it appears to me that the demand for context might be overemphasised.
Likely false. Rather, it appears statistically to be the case that questions without context are much more often given full answers than closed. If you want evidence, just take a sample of 100 consecutive questions during the school semester.
That has two bad consequences: (1) If you are not only allowed but even required to describe the context in detail it can prevent from a precise mathematical statement of the question.
Absolutely false. You can easily present the precise mathematical statement first before you give its context. It makes no sense to claim that you cannot do so.
As I see it a precisely stated question stands for itself and no context is required, otherwise it would not be precisely stated.
Math SE is not a free-for-all Q&A site; see the linked FAQ.
(2) It invites others to "chicken-out" from the actual question and start a meta-discussion about the context. I have observed both patterns quite often.
Feel free to flag for moderator attention if you think some comments are out of place. But I recommend you do not use words that 'suggest' people are scared chickens or something.
Of course I also think that context might be extremely useful for both the OP and those attempting an answer but I think about if in the end it wouldn't pay out more if OPs should get more authority in what context they want to give or not.
So you agree that context makes the question better. Then as I stated above, state the precise question and then briefly sketch the context next. Issue resolved. And again, the FAQ makes it clear what is the expectation here.
A kind of worst-case scenario is, that there is a perfectly well stated and defined question, which gets closed because no context is given. And OP is not aware if its encouraged and how to re-state the question.
Ahem; the close-banner links directly to the FAQ. Did you notice that?
As far as I see in such a case (of re-statement of the question) its mandatory to link to the closed question, such a restated questions will have then very likely a bad start, by the fact alone that it will be very similar to the closed question.
Again, this is explicitly addressed in the close-banner. In case you do not want to bother to read the close-banner here is the message for "lack of context" closure:
This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:
- "This question is missing context or other details: Please improve the question by providing additional context, which ideally includes your thoughts on the problem and any attempts you have made to solve it. This information helps others identify where you have difficulties and helps them write answers appropriate to your experience level."
If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.
Notice how it even provides a shiny hyperlink to editing the closed question that the asker can easily click on to improve his/her question.
It might be regraded as "unethical" as well to introduce a knockout criteria "missing context" if actually "no homework" is meant, eg.
Please for the sake of meaningful discussion do not attempt to label something you do not like as "unethical" when you do not actually have an ethical objection to it. Also, in the past there was a huge debate about "homework questions" and in the end it was kind of decided that it was too difficult to determine whether a question was a homework question or not, not to say justify what to do with homework questions that were not tagged homework, and hence the homework tag was completely removed. Finally, we can determine easily whether a question is lacking context or not. If users disagree on that, that is precisely what the close-voting is for. At least 5 users need to agree that the question is lacking context before it can be closed, and the same number of users who see a closed question can re-open it if they disagree with the closure.