Timeline for How do we encourage edits to obsolete/out of date answers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
91 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 4, 2022 at 7:50 | answer | added | Louis Waweru | timeline score: 1 | |
| Feb 19, 2021 at 13:41 | comment | added | This_is_NOT_a_forum | Referenced in meta post Introducing Outdated Answers project (2021-02-18). | |
| Jun 3, 2020 at 13:30 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
|
|
| Sep 3, 2019 at 2:04 | comment | added | Braiam | @AndrewWolfe that's incredibly obnoxious. I do not want to open 5 different questions just to find the one that correspond to my version. Heck, I shouldn't have to scroll past the first answer to find the solution to my question 95% of the time. Any solution that implies duplication of information, reduces user productivity and wastes time. Time wasting is reduced by having one-size-fits-most approach. | |
| Jan 29, 2018 at 14:58 | comment | added | Andrew Wolfe | NONE OF THE THREE SOLUTIONS LISTED IN THE QUESTION IS ACCEPTABLE. Yes, I'm restating some other comments. For a question in which the underlying condition has changed (e.g. software version), we must have a new question. Sorting answers for a query is indeed an issue. However, hiding an answer to Windows 7 or Oracle11g because newer answers to the same question apply to Windows 10 or Oracle12c should not be acceptable. Maybe express tech versions in detailed/hierarchic tags, e.g. Eclipse3.4 implies Eclipse. Option: tweak 'redundant' to support "See Question for newer version of Eclipse". | |
| Jan 9, 2018 at 13:08 | comment | added | Himanshu sharma | What is the status to this approach? | |
| Nov 23, 2017 at 21:22 | answer | added | Rob | timeline score: 2 | |
| May 23, 2017 at 12:35 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://stackoverflow.com/ with https://stackoverflow.com/
|
|
| Apr 7, 2017 at 15:19 | answer | added | Oleg V. Volkov | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 20, 2017 at 10:30 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.stackexchange.com/ with https://meta.stackexchange.com/
|
|
| Mar 20, 2017 at 9:39 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.stackoverflow.com/ with https://meta.stackoverflow.com/
|
|
| Mar 29, 2016 at 23:04 | history | edited | Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' |
edited tags
|
|
| Aug 26, 2015 at 22:08 | answer | added | CRABOLO | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 6, 2015 at 1:13 | answer | added | user300807 | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 5, 2015 at 13:59 | history | edited | TarynStaff |
edited tags
|
|
| Aug 4, 2015 at 23:45 | answer | added | Kendrick | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 4, 2015 at 21:59 | answer | added | Jon EricsonStaff | timeline score: 9 | |
| Aug 4, 2015 at 21:24 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Aug 4, 2015 at 21:25 | |||||
| Aug 4, 2015 at 21:22 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Aug 4, 2015 at 21:23 | |||||
| Aug 4, 2015 at 13:59 | comment | added | user213963 | @bluefeet the auto-protect feature. Summary: there is an auto-protect by community when a post gets more than N answers from users with less than M reputation on the site within a given time frame. This is in place to help prevent pile on low quality answers (often given by low rep users) from hot questions and questions popularized on other sites. You may wish to consider adjusting the MSE threshold. | |
| Aug 4, 2015 at 13:35 | answer | added | srcspider | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 4, 2015 at 12:00 | comment | added | Taryn Staff | @srcspider I'm not sure why this was protected, I've unprotected it now. Feel free to expand and post an answer. | |
| Aug 4, 2015 at 11:59 | history | unprotected | TarynStaff | ||
| Aug 4, 2015 at 10:14 | comment | added | srcspider | Ironically the fact I can't actually post an answer to this question is indicative of what the actual problem is. Old questions (1year+) should not be allowed to be used when marking something as duplicate; or other mod tools. The problem here is that mods on the site values too much pointless cleanliness over actually getting the questions/answers though; under 100 answers it should be moderated though up/down votes only. If it's over a year you might as well allow the question to be restarted since chances are the old "good" practice that has earned 100+ votes is now obsolete or a hack. | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 23:32 | comment | added | Deer Hunter | Okay, thanks for the clarification. Having several concurrent OODA loops in place is quite an achievement. | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 23:22 | comment | added | Taryn Staff | @DeerHunter We aren't planning on implementing anything at this time, it's a discussion to see what if/anything could be changed in how the current process works. | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 23:08 | comment | added | Deer Hunter | It also looks like that SE team has an internal schedule of making profound changes to the way the network works every three days or so (07/15, 07/16, 07/22, 07/24, 07/28, 07/31, to name the most recent posts). The cycle is too short to absorb users' feedback, yet just enough to keep MSE dwellers agitated. | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 21:22 | comment | added | user154510 | Mods seem incredibly resistant to convert encyclopedic answers that have been repeatedly revised by multiple users into Community Wiki posts, which serves both to continue making CW useless and misunderstood and to discourage such contribution. (Why should I give the jackass who happened to post first the credit and rep for what I contributed?) That should change. I've thought about suggesting something like giving a % of the rep to editors, but that seems ripe for abuse and I don't see a good way to prevent it. | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 21:11 | answer | added | TechZen | timeline score: 2 | |
| S Aug 3, 2015 at 20:54 | answer | added | Aleksandr Dubinsky | timeline score: 1 | |
| S Aug 3, 2015 at 20:54 | history | protected | CommunityBot | ||
| Aug 3, 2015 at 20:48 | answer | added | RLF | timeline score: 7 | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 19:36 | answer | added | Tomas M | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 19:34 | comment | added | prusswan | In fact, it can be pretty hard to tell at first glance, which version is a particular answer meant for, if not explicitly stated and one has been away from the subject for some time. That said, ability to tag individual answers might help. | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 19:26 | comment | added | prusswan | I asked this: meta.stackexchange.com/q/144786/166277 Basicially this site can do with a 'versioning' system for questions/answers, but it will be hell to maintain for subjects that just change too much | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 18:13 | answer | added | BAMF4bacon | timeline score: 0 | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 17:15 | comment | added | Pekka | My second question on Meta ever was a somewhat related feature request: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/36004/… it wasn't well received at the time, but I still like the general idea of putting people in charge of the long-term maintenance of a question and its answers | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 16:42 | comment | added | elika kohen | PLEASE save obsolete answers, and link them. And encourage version numbers in questions. This is very useful, especially in technology, when there are different solutions for different API levels. In Mechanics, there is a similar value, etc. And, tackling a physiques problem from Quantum or Classical physics could be very helpful as well. | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 16:31 | answer | added | elika kohen | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 16:11 | answer | added | Ruslan López | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 14:29 | answer | added | Your Common Sense | timeline score: -7 | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 12:35 | comment | added | dan | A Review queue that shows questions of certain age where you can vote "Still valid" , "Needs Editing" , "Obsolete" should do the trick | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 8:41 | answer | added | Erik I | timeline score: -8 | |
| Aug 3, 2015 at 1:09 | answer | added | iOSGeek | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 2, 2015 at 21:52 | answer | added | TylerH | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 2, 2015 at 16:23 | answer | added | ChrisFMod | timeline score: 5 | |
| Aug 2, 2015 at 13:58 | answer | added | Mr. Alien | timeline score: 12 | |
| Aug 2, 2015 at 12:33 | answer | added | somebody | timeline score: 3 | |
| Aug 2, 2015 at 5:19 | comment | added | Graham Perrin | I applaud the good hard look … tl;dr hard and with a smile, don't make lives unnecessarily difficult for yourselves … | |
| Aug 2, 2015 at 4:16 | answer | added | Damian Yerrick | timeline score: 22 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 21:50 | answer | added | Honest Abe | timeline score: 1 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 20:47 | answer | added | leanne | timeline score: 6 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 20:10 | comment | added | corsair992 | As Deer Hunter mentioned in his answer, we need to know the actual scope and severity of this issue before attempting to make any technical changes. As mentioned here and in the linked topics, the community already has some methods to deal with these situations, including commenting, answering, editing and bounties. Unless there is a very prevalent issue to address here, further technical solutions would be premature. Obviously, community wiki posts would be much more easily edited, but I don't think we should be forcing posts into wiki status either. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 19:10 | answer | added | Dom | timeline score: 6 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 19:01 | answer | added | Graham Perrin | timeline score: 12 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 17:54 | answer | added | Rachel | timeline score: 44 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 16:58 | comment | added | Thomas Owens | From my own history, I have an answer to a question that specifically referenced a particular version of Eclipse and asked how to do something that was not possible. It's gotten comments pointing out that it was "wrong" and even downvotes. However, to anyone still using Eclipse 3.4.2, this is the correct answer. I ended up adding commentary to my answer (which appeared to stem the down votes), but I shouldn't have to do that. Questions may be tied to things that change over time. That's OK | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 16:55 | comment | added | Thomas Owens | I see this mentioned in other comments, but I don't see how we can call a question or answers obsolete. Maybe we need to do a better job of identifying specific versions and technologies in questions - take a C++ or Java question. One asked 7 years ago about C++03 and Java SE 6 would have different answers today, if you were using C++11 and Java 8 since new capabilities have been introduced. But that doesn't mean that the answer isn't valid anymore and shouldn't be weighted less since it's still incredibly useful to someone using those technologies. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 16:49 | answer | added | user213963 | timeline score: 21 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 15:12 | comment | added | Taryn Staff | @michael I agree with that, which is partly why we are having this discussion to hopefully flesh out some options, and see ways that something potentially could be abused. We're not planning on a specific implementation at this point. It's just a discussion. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 15:02 | comment | added | baao | @bluefeet that's true though I doubt that edits will allways be made in this way. I think your idea of vote for obsolete answer is the way to go, but I think that the person who votes for marking an answer as obsolete should be required to give some "evidence" for it. I see a high potential for chaos in the whole thing. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 14:56 | comment | added | Taryn Staff | @michael Not really, editing an answer stating part of it is for a legacy version and then incorporating new code into the same answer similar to what we see on CW posts. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 14:46 | comment | added | baao | On the one hand We don’t want to lose or delete these answers, due to legacy applications that still need the code but we need to figure out the right way to handle them and on the other hand you are asking to edit those answers? That's a contradiction to itself. As soon as the answer is edited, the old original answer is lost as it would be when it is deleted. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 14:23 | comment | added | Taryn Staff | @MichaelT Yes I believe that is a large part of the problem. But the question is how do we fix that? | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 13:14 | comment | added | user213963 | Do we also need to change the culture that emphasizes rejecting changes that "clearly conflict with the author's intent" or "putting words in the OP's mouth/text" or "correcting/adding code to existing answers rather than posting a new answer"? The technical changes are ease compared to culture changes. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 12:27 | answer | added | sqlab | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 8:06 | answer | added | bish | timeline score: 4 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 6:24 | answer | added | Deer Hunter | timeline score: 33 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 6:00 | comment | added | Deer Hunter | As @Earthliŋ said, you might be trying to treat a symptom instead of curing the disease. Stack Overflow is in decline, and broken windows are just a manifestation of that. | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 4:17 | answer | added | Benny Skogberg | timeline score: 17 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 1:12 | answer | added | Josiah | timeline score: 17 | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 1:04 | comment | added | Seth | Thanks @Shog9, I wasn't aware of that (looks like the option is hidden under a few clicks). It seems like the problem is already solved! :) Perhaps making that feature a bit more visible and adding a nice UI treatment could help? | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 0:12 | comment | added | Earthliŋ | Are you just trying to find a solution for "obsolete" answers, or also the (arguably bigger) problem of people becoming inactive and leaving the site with accepted (possibly wrong) answers? | |
| Aug 1, 2015 at 0:11 | comment | added | Shog9 | That particular feature already exists, @Seth: meta.stackexchange.com/help/searching | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 23:48 | comment | added | Seth | I agree with msh210 & Ross Ridge - "Legacy" systems exist and many are actually production systems - Knowing the fix for a 7 year old problem is valuable information. Perhaps a solution to is to introduce a "Search by Question Date" option, so users can find answers to things they know are new problems. I use the google version of that feature all the time to find current information. People that wish to can still update their answers to reflect current information, in response to down votes (I've done that). | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 23:47 | comment | added | PolyGeo | This precise issue came up on Meta GIS SE recently: meta.gis.stackexchange.com/questions/3996/… | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 23:13 | comment | added | Lightness Races in Orbit | And 80% of c++ questions (hello, Turbo C++ from 1990 in Indian locale mode) | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 23:06 | answer | added | PearsonArtPhoto | timeline score: 17 | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 23:00 | comment | added | Ross Ridge | I'm having trouble seeing how the "obsolete" posts will be objectively identified. There are new questions posted every day about obsolete technologies on Stack Overflow. Should every Windows related answer that doesn't apply to Windows 10 be considered obsolete now? | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 22:31 | answer | added | hildred | timeline score: 10 | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 22:14 | answer | added | durron597 | timeline score: 89 | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 22:12 | comment | added | SevenSidedDie | We run into this on RPG.se often enough, with games that have changing/updated/errata'd rules. We do two things: 1) ask active users to update their answers, 2) edit old questions to rescope them to exclude whatever new thing made them/their answers obsolete to make room for new non-duplicate questions. (1) is unreliable as noted here but works sometimes, and (2) doesn't always apply; but together it catches a large fraction of the problem. That said, it's not really satisfactory either. | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 22:05 | comment | added | msh210 | Another big problem with editing the answer is that the original answer is good for legacy systems. | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 21:45 | comment | added | nhinkle | One major issue is people religiously close as duplicate any new question, but then visitors get angry when the 7 year old question has obsolete answers. | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 21:36 | comment | added | Taryn Staff | @fedorqui These might not be separate questions though. It might be a newer answer to the same question. | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 21:29 | comment | added | fedorqui 'SO stop harming' | What about having something similar to "duplicate" but "obsolete" that redirects to a new question with a proper solution to the problem? This way the former question remains valid as it was and the new one is the new, good way to do things. | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 21:13 | answer | added | M.A.R. | timeline score: 130 | |
| S Jul 31, 2015 at 21:06 | history | suggested | Michael come lately | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Minor grammatical changes.
|
| Jul 31, 2015 at 21:05 | comment | added | ChrisF Mod | Not sticking the accepted answer to the question would be a start. Then if and when a new answer gets more upvotes it will rise above the old answer. | |
| Jul 31, 2015 at 21:05 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jul 31, 2015 at 21:06 | |||||
| Jul 31, 2015 at 20:28 | history | asked | TarynStaff | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
