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People like getting their answers upvoted and quick. Especially if a lot of effort was put into them. Some of the older questions are quite interesting. People might be getting a new perspective on an old question over time as well.

Current situation:

  • re-asking an old question is not allowed;
  • most up-voted / accepted answers are always on the top by default;
  • upvoted comments are not visible on your profile;
  • comment upvotes don't get added to your reputation;
  • posting an answer to an old question will only notify the person who asked the question.

This way SE discourages helpful additional answers to old interesting questions. Instead it encourages posting a minimal answer as quick as possible and then extending it once people start upvoting.

Proposal:

  1. Create a bounty for extra answers on an old question

  2. Show a mix of newest and most-upvoted answers on the top

  3. Show top upvoted comments on user's profile

  4. Add comment upvotes to user's reputation

  5. Send more notifications about a new answer

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10
  • So what's your proposal? I don't think I understand what you're trying to bring out.
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:16
  • 1
    Your point 4 is an exact dupe of meta.stackexchange.com/questions/296/reputation-for-comments
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:27
  • 1
    Your point 3 is an exact dupe of meta.stackexchange.com/questions/88864/…
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:29
  • Who is paying for the bounty at Point 1? Point 2 doesn't improve the views or information presentation. How much MORE should "more notifications" be?
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:31
  • Can you provide some examples of "Some of the older questions are quite interesting. People might be getting a new perspective on an old question over time as well."?
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:32
  • Re-asking an old question is not allowed of course because re-asking means duplicate. To make old questions active and let more people notice, you have to bump them regularly (posting comment, editing, asking answers on chat rooms)
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:34
  • "posting an answer to an old question will only notify the person who asked the question." - No, it doesn't. It directly notifies anyone who's marked it as favourite and indirectly notfies anyone else by pushing the post to the front page. And no, I don't want each funny and totally unrelated comment to actually add up to serious reputation (and don't tell me comments that don't deserve reputation aren't upvoted).
    – Christian Rau
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:39
  • 1
    Advice on pushing the question to the top of home page: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/7046/…
    – 54D
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 15:40
  • 1
    All other things being equal, the more minimal answer actually is the better answer
    – Sam I am says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 16:32
  • possible duplicate of What's the incentive to answer old/inactive questions? See also How can we make good answers to old questions float to the top?
    – gnat
    Commented Jan 10, 2015 at 19:42

2 Answers 2

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3

If there actually is a good reason to believe that newer, better answers to old questions are available, such as when a new framework comes out that you can use, then you definitely can re-ask the question.

Just make sure that it's not an exact duplicate make it in such a way that answers to the old question don't apply to it. If a new framework came out that applies to your question, this can be as simple adding the tag for the newer framework.

Secondly, the big upvotes come when you post answers for problems that people run across every day. If that's the case then you can just post an answer on the old question.

When people stumble across the old question again, looking for the answer, If they're lazy, like me, they're probably not just going to take the answer at the top if that answer looks either hard to implement or suboptimal, they'll look for an simpler or better answer before they dedicate the time to actually implement one.

If your answer truly is better than the other answers, you should still be able to get up-votes from this.

Improve this answer
12

  1. Everyone is free to post a bounty on whatever questions, and award it to whatever answers.

  2. One can already sort answers by activity.

  3. Showing top upvoted comments on user's profile would place too much emphasis on that content. Which isn't great content (link found by ArceusMaster0493).

  4. Add comment upvotes to user's reputation: as ArceusMaster0493 pointed out, this has been discussed and declined.

  5. Send more notifications about a new answer: to whom?

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    Thank you for addressing the suggestions. Can you please also answer the subj question and maybe suggest something to address the problem?
    – Den
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 16:08
  • No they aren't. It is natural that old questions get less attention. FGITW is a design feature - get quick answers to your questions.
    – Tim
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 17:02
  • 2. Make the "active" link more prominent perhaps?
    – Damian Yerrick
    Commented Jan 9, 2015 at 17:54

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