There might be one class of answer that needs to be allowed - though not as an answer.

This answer has just been posted on a 5 month old question. It basically says:

I'm getting this problem as well, did you ever find a solution.

Now at first glance this looks like a bad answer, but there is no other answer on the question - not even from the OP - so either they solved their problem and didn't bother to come back to update the question or abandoned the approach altogether. Either way an answer from the OP (or deletion in the latter case) would be useful.

If the problem was solved we'd have an answer, if not we'd know that this approach doesn't work and should try something else. If the question was deleted the new poster would be free to post their own question!

So in this case the answer should act as a reminder to the OP to "close" the question in some way.

Now I'd be the first to point out that posting this as an answer is wrong and not what SO was designed for, so do we need some other way for low rep users to be able to interact with a question to either bump it to the "interesting" page or prod the OP so that it gets some more attention?

I don't know what that interaction might be, but reminding the OP about these questions can't be a bad thing.

There might be one class of answer that needs to be allowed - though not as an answer.

This answer has just been posted on a 5 month old question. It basically says:

I'm getting this problem as well, did you ever find a solution.

Now at first glance this looks like a bad answer, but there is no other answer on the question - not even from the OP - so either they solved their problem and didn't bother to come back to update the question or abandoned the approach altogether. Either way an answer from the OP (or deletion in the latter case) would be useful.

If the problem was solved we'd have an answer, if not we'd know that this approach doesn't work and should try something else. If the question was deleted the new poster would be free to post their own question!

So in this case the answer should act as a reminder to the OP to "close" the question in some way.

Now I'd be the first to point out that posting this as an answer is wrong and not what SO was designed for, so do we need some other way for low rep users to be able to interact with a question to either bump it to the "interesting" page or prod the OP so that it gets some more attention?

I don't know what that interaction might be, but reminding the OP about these questions can't be a bad thing.

There might be one class of answer that needs to be allowed - though not as an answer.

This answer has just been posted on a 5 month old question. It basically says:

I'm getting this problem as well, did you ever find a solution.

Now at first glance this looks like a bad answer, but there is no other answer on the question - not even from the OP - so either they solved their problem or abandoned the approach altogether. Either way an answer from the OP (or deletion in the latter case) would be useful.

If the problem was solved we'd have an answer, if not we'd know that this approach doesn't work and should try something else. If the question was deleted the new poster would be free to post their own question!

So in this case the answer should act as a reminder to the OP to "close" the question in some way.

Now I'd be the first to point out that posting this as an answer is wrong and not what SO was designed for, so do we need some other way for low rep users to be able to interact with a question to either bump it to the "interesting" page or prod the OP so that it gets some more attention?

I don't know what that interaction might be, but reminding the OP about these questions can't be a bad thing.

There might be one class of answer that needs to be allowed - though not as an answer.

This answer has just been posted on a 5 month old question. It basically says:

I'm getting this problem as well, did you ever find a solution.

Now at first glance this looks like a bad answer, but there is no other answer on the question - not even from the OP - so either they solved their problem and didn't bother to come back to update the question or abandoned the approach altogether. Either way an answer from the OP (or deletion in the latter case) would be useful.

If the problem was solved we'd have an answer, if not we'd know that this approach doesn't work and should try something else. If the question was deleted the new poster would be free to post their own question!

So in this case the answer should act as a reminder to the OP to "close" the question in some way.

Now I'd be the first to point out that posting this as an answer is wrong and not what SO was designed for, so do we need some other way for low rep users to be able to interact with a question to either bump it to the "interesting" page or prod the OP so that it gets some more attention?

I don't know what that interaction might be, but reminding the OP about these questions can't be a bad thing.