Best practice to grab some up-to-date information from Meta

Question

I'm learning about the SE mechanics. In most cases I write a list of keywords (2 to 3 is enough) and hit the Search button, either SE search or Google. Then I'm presented with a lot of results. Sometimes I get the right answer but more often, I end up thinking an outdated version is the current setting. Even worse, if later I come across a similar question and answer it with the information I've just acquired, I get frustrated by people's telling me "You're wrong. It's no longer set as that.".

So how can I make sure I can always, or even if not, at a reliable possibility, get the latest information about something about SE?

Here are what I've thought of:

• Ask a new question. It's a bad practice because if all people follow this, Meta will soon be flushed by repetitive posts.
• Flag an old post for ♦ attention. Since all MSE ♦s are SE employees, I can always get my desired response, but the flag itself often gets declined for wrong use.
• Post this question for the Meta community's idea :)

Answer 1

How can I make sure I can always, or even if not, at a reliable possibility, get the latest information about something about SE?

TL;DR: you can't.

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Even after being a member here for long years, and considering myself as someone who knows a thing or two about this place, I can't always find the latest information easily, not without spending lots of time verifying this. Sometimes I assume something I found is up to date, post this as answer or comment, just to be told it's outdated by now.

One thing is for sure though, do not use flags to ask for such things, this is abusing of the flag system. If you want direct interaction with Stack Exchange employees, head over to chat, there are always some employees present in the Tavern. Don't bug them too much, just asking once about something is enough, and don't push it if nobody responds. But it's better than nothing.

Asking a new question is not always a bad practice, and usually the proper way to get information about something here. In case you did find information and just want to verify it is up to date, it becomes somewhat problematic, as this by itself might not be worth posting whole new question. So my advice is just try to test it yourself, for those things we have the Formatting Sandbox, and we are even allowed to create "sock puppet" accounts to test stuff, e.g. it's legit to do the following:

1. You found info telling that post author name is removed if comment starts with @author-name.
2. You're not sure this info is correct or up to date.
3. You create a new account and post answer in the sandbox.
4. Using your main account you post a comment on that answer, starting with @sock-name.
5. You can now know for sure whether the info is right or wrong.

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There is also Recent feature changes to Stack Exchange, however it is not official hence not 100% up to date. (i.e. relies on ordinary users like you and me to update it.)

Answer 2

Start by searching in the faq tag for whatever your question is. While meta posts are not always authoritative and new posts are not necessarily more authoritative than older ones, the community does try to keep the FAQ current and accurate.

The FAQ is intended for higher-level information, not every little detail of how things work. If your question is too detailed or low-level for the FAQ, you can still use the FAQ as an entry point. Look at linked and related posts (there are usually a bunch).

Sometimes you can find hints in Recent feature changes to Stack Exchange , another community-maintained resource.

If none of that works, start to ask your question and look at the list of suggested matches. The search on the "ask question" page sometimes produces better results than the main search. (This used to be nearly always true, but I think they've been improving the main search.)

If you still don't find what you're looking for and you can't test it yourself, go ahead and ask your question. If it's a duplicate somebody will find it, and if not, with luck, you'll get an answer.