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Looking back at some of highest voted SO questions for Dart, a number of them are very out of date, or are about features which have been removed.

For example:

Why can Dart's built-in List interface be instantiated?

Dart hasn't had the interface keyword for a couple of years. This question/answer is more confusing than helpful for anyone learning to use Dart.

Should question/answers like these be removed by moderators - or is there a process for flagging these question/answers as out of date?

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    I suppose you're implying we shouldn't care about helping those that have to support legacy applications?
    – Anil
    Commented Feb 17, 2014 at 23:50
  • It would probably make sense to just tag them with whatever old version the question was discussing. (As, for instance, we have sql-server-2000, sql-server-2005, etc., as well as just sql-server. I had a project a few months ago where we had to use sql-server-2000, which sucked, but SO was a huge help.) Then, sure, answer it for the latest version, but deleting it would be silly - as Sly said, sometimes you want information about old versions. Hence, tagging.
    – neminem
    Commented Feb 17, 2014 at 23:57
  • In this case the question is based on syntax from before the 1.0 release, in fact before the alpha release I believe, so I'd have to tag it with the build number. @Sly - So there won't be any legacy code running on this version.
    – Greg Lowe
    Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 0:30
  • Thanks for the insight. However, to assume that all users use the current, or stable release is presumptuous. I think @neminem said it well, stating the version number, when possible, in the tag would be a better practice and would follow what we are already doing with other tags. We would want users to feel welcome to ask questions on the board, no matter the version number. We still field iOS6 questions from time to time even though iOS7 is the latest SDK and Apple no longer even provides the iOS6 SDK. This is the best analogy I could come up with.
    – Anil
    Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 0:36
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    I think you will struggle to find a single user who is stuck using a pre-alpha version of Dart. But I'll suggest that the author of the question updates the question with a blurb that it is based on obsolete syntax - DONE.
    – Greg Lowe
    Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 0:39
  • The SO community isn't here to nit pick every technology out there and rule out obsolete posts due to version changes, etc. Imagine if we applied this rule to all of the other SDKs, APIs, toolkits, libraries, and plugins that are out there? The amount of work to remove, retag, update, or classify them would be insurmountable. Instead, we simply ask the poster to qualify their issue with the version number, regardless if it is an alpha, beta, rc, or production release of a build. They are entitled to ask a question about anything that is deemed on-topic. This is what makes SO so great!
    – Anil
    Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 0:48
  • The Dart community uses SO as the primary Q&A site. There are plenty of Dart SO moderators who would be happy to do this - I was just interested to find out what other SO meta users thought.
    – Greg Lowe
    Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 0:52

1 Answer 1

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I disagree with closing or deleting those. They are on-topic, have good answers, and aren't fit for deletion.

However, what you can do with questions such as these are answer the question so that it is correct. So if it's been removed, say that you can't do that anymore in the latest version, and suggest an alternative. And then you can leave a comment like:

This cannot be done since (the version number) of language. Please see [this answer](link to the answer) for more information.

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  • I'm almost inclined to think that if such a situation occurs, a new post that explains the issue, possibly with a link referring to the old question, that way an answer relating to an older version is not mixed with a new version. I would be worried that many would simply skip reading the answers of a post after reading that the post is relating to an older version and completely miss the answer that is about a newer version. Cheers.
    – Anil
    Commented Feb 17, 2014 at 23:58
  • So in this example, there is no explicit interface syntax any more. It is not in the 1.0 release, and I think was even taken out before the first alpha release. Given this syntax was removed, the question makes no sense, and will just spam people's search results. But I agree in generally that some questions can be updated with newer syntax. I do this on occasion.
    – Greg Lowe
    Commented Feb 18, 2014 at 0:36

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