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Recently I was researching an issue and couldn't find the answer on stackoverflow, so I had to turn to Google. I kept finding links that seemed to be related to my my problem, but they referred to an older version of the technology and it was hard to tell what was still valid advice and what I should trust.

I was thinking about a feature of stackoverflow, where instead of asking a direct question, you could post a link to an external site (blog, article, discussion, etc), maybe with some comments. The voting of the question would reflect the value of the link (its currentness, value, etc), and the answers could give details about why the content was or was not still valid. It could work like community wiki, to keep the up/down votes of the link from affecting the person "asking" the question. Answers could still get reputation.

Also, anytime an answer to another question contains a link, it could be marked up to the "link question" if it exists.

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The fundamental flaw that I see with this idea is that a really relevant and up-to-date link might generate lots of votes today, and it will retain most of those votes a year from now, even though it will likely be out of date by then.

Granted that this is a flaw in every answer given on SO, but that's why we vote on usefulness and not on currency.

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    I'm pretty sure that if people started offering currency voting would go up significantly. – Pollyanna Nov 17 '09 at 3:55
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    @Adam: My spell checker assures me that "currentness" is not a word. :) – Bill the Lizard Nov 17 '09 at 3:58
  • Not sure if currentness is a real word either - thefreedictionary.com/Currentness – Kevin Hakanson Nov 17 '09 at 4:05
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    currency is the correct word here. And it means nothing of exchange or monetary context, but of timeliness. – random Nov 17 '09 at 4:12
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So... you want a Dig or Reddit for programming? They already exist. Stackoverflow is geared towards answering questions, and while you could try this out as an experiment to see if the community likes it, I suspect you'll find they don't like it.

You might consider taking the central premise of the resource and turning it into a question, without linking the resource. If someone else answers with that resource then you know it's a good resource on that topic. Chances are good, however, you'll find people will provide many more great direct answers and links to better resources than the one you originally had in mind.

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The problem with this that I see first off is that if a "current/relevant" link gets way voted-up (say to 20), and then becomes uncurrent - who's going to want to expend rep voting it down?

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