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My question concerns how to perform boost::filesystem copy_file with overwrite. I asked the question, and at the time selected the correct answer. However, time passes and libraries get updated, and now a different answer is actually correct.

I should probably select this new answer as the correct answer, but I feel bad for the person that will lose 15 reputation points even though is answer was the a good answer at that given point in time.

Any suggestions?

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I should probably select this new answer as the correct answer, but I feel bad for the person that will lose 15 reputation points even though is answer was the a good answer at that given point in time.

The answer probably got plenty of upvotes already being an accepted answer. It's more important to follow up and select what you believe to be the correct answer.

Certainly more important than a few reputation points in the big scheme of things.

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    If I didn't pose the question (and hence can't bless the new-correct answer), should I downvote the originally-correct answer? That also seems unfair, but it's the only option available. (After leaving a comment.)
    – mjs
    Apr 28, 2016 at 20:44
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I have seen this phenomena many times. Sometimes new questions are started, and in some cases that is good because, some of the upvotes in the old questions wouldn't be upvotes today.

A good example is the questions about an IDE for Scala:

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I encountered this dilemma again today from Hadoop: specify yarn queue for distcp

If I had my druthers, I would prefer to see both answers in this example marked with a check (or alternate glyph) and a tag (for the answer, not the question) indicating the version numbers when each answer applies (v1.x in one case; v2.x and v3.x in the other).

I personally don't agree with downvoting the antiquated answer, even if the technology is EOL. Knowledge can be certainly true in the past, probably true in the present, and possibly true in the future. StackExchange is no different.

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I found that performing an EDIT without deleting the previous content but specifying the reason of the update is a good option, for example a case where the correct answer can change over time is in an update of version of Windows (7, 8, 8.1 , 10 and now 11).

Here is an example I did in SO to the question "How do I get monitor resolution in Python?": https://stackoverflow.com/a/56336303/9756894

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    Related (2021-10-08): Version labels for answers
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Oct 8, 2021 at 8:48
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    Posts shouldn't contain meta information like "UPDATE" (that is what the revision history is for). Other meta information belongs in comments. The post should appear as if it was written today. It doesn't matter when something was written. For example, use version ranges (and/or date ranges) instead for different versions of software and operating systems.
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Oct 8, 2021 at 8:48

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