4 ms·

> One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever softwa

> One challenge not discussed here is when an accepted and highly voted answer _used_ to be a good answer, but no longer is in later versions of whatever software/platform/library is discussed. That's not a big problem. Questions and comments can be edited by other users, which includes adding and altering tags that reflect software versions.

InclinedPlane 8y ago
Editing someone else's question or answer (comments can't be edited by others) is a very aggressive move and not something that anyone other than a handful of very experienced / high rep users are likely to do very often. And it is far from a perfect solution either. Editing an answer substantially upsets the entire up/down vote system, as well as the comments. A better system would be something like question/answer versioning. In general it's a problem that has received far too little effort.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > Editing someone else's question or answer (comments can't be edited by others) is a very aggressive move and not something that anyone other than a handful of very experienced / high rep users are likely to do very often. Do you really believe that adding a tag with a version number to a post is something that can be classified as a very aggressive move, particilarly if it's an old post?
  - InclinedPlane 8y ago
    Please be serious, you know that's not what is meant by editing old answers in the context of "stack overflow is more like wikipedia than anything else". The implication is wholesale change of the entire content of the answer (or question). Which fundamentally breaks how stack overflow works, and is why it's not something that happens very often.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
That's not a solution. Tags are hidden at the bottom of the answer. Accepted status and vote count are prominently highlighted. Accepted status locks the outdated answer to the top of the page regardless of whether it's valid.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > That's not a solution. Tags are hidden at the bottom of the answer. Yes, it really is. Tags are used to filter results. Stackoverflow specifically lets users run searches only on specific tags, or even exclude certain tags from the search results. As tags reflect technologies and their versions, stackoverflow enables users to run queries only on specific versions.
  - umanwizard 8y ago
    You're thinking about this from a power-user perspective. 99% of people use Google as the search interface to stack overflow.
    - hahahihi 8y ago
      SO search is horrible. I sometimes use it by acident then wonder wtf am i doing when the desired result doesn't show.
sporkland 8y ago
I feel like I've been noticing that this problem on SO a lot recently, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. I'll often find answers to questions which are outdated and haven't been improved. I agree they have a mechanism in place to fix it, but are users actually fixing answers en masse? SO could introduce an age out mechanism that requires an answer to be maintained semi regularly? Do they already have this today?
raesene9 8y ago
They can be but AFAIK edits don't garner the editor points, so from a gamification perspective, people might be less inclined to edit than to put a new answer with the updated information.
jrochkind1 8y ago
I get outdated answers a lot of the time I'm searching. And that's when I can _recognize_ outdated answers. A lot of others posting here say the same. I guess it's possible we're an unrepresentative minority, and it doesn't effect many users. Otherwise, how is it "not a big problem"? Is it the sort of thing where "in theory" it's not a big problem, even though in actuality it significantly effects the usefulness of the site to many people?
dagw 8y ago
That's not a big problem. As someone who primarily interacts with SO via search engine results, it's one of the biggest problems with SO. The number of top voted/accepted answers that are 'wrong' in one way or another keeps going up and thus the chance of me finding the 'right' answer on SO keeps going down.

InclinedPlane 8y ago

Editing someone else's question or answer (comments can't be edited by others) is a very aggressive move and not something that anyone other than a handful of very experienced / high rep users are likely to do very often. And it is far from a perfect solution either. Editing an answer substantially upsets the entire up/down vote system, as well as the comments. A better system would be something like question/answer versioning. In general it's a problem that has received far too little effort.

geezerjay 8y ago
> Editing someone else's question or answer (comments can't be edited by others) is a very aggressive move and not something that anyone other than a handful of very experienced / high rep users are likely to do very often. Do you really believe that adding a tag with a version number to a post is something that can be classified as a very aggressive move, particilarly if it's an old post?
- InclinedPlane 8y ago
  Please be serious, you know that's not what is meant by editing old answers in the context of "stack overflow is more like wikipedia than anything else". The implication is wholesale change of the entire content of the answer (or question). Which fundamentally breaks how stack overflow works, and is why it's not something that happens very often.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

That's not a solution. Tags are hidden at the bottom of the answer. Accepted status and vote count are prominently highlighted. Accepted status locks the outdated answer to the top of the page regardless of whether it's valid.

geezerjay 8y ago
> That's not a solution. Tags are hidden at the bottom of the answer. Yes, it really is. Tags are used to filter results. Stackoverflow specifically lets users run searches only on specific tags, or even exclude certain tags from the search results. As tags reflect technologies and their versions, stackoverflow enables users to run queries only on specific versions.
- umanwizard 8y ago
  You're thinking about this from a power-user perspective. 99% of people use Google as the search interface to stack overflow.
  - hahahihi 8y ago
    SO search is horrible. I sometimes use it by acident then wonder wtf am i doing when the desired result doesn't show.

sporkland 8y ago

I feel like I've been noticing that this problem on SO a lot recently, so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it. I'll often find answers to questions which are outdated and haven't been improved. I agree they have a mechanism in place to fix it, but are users actually fixing answers en masse? SO could introduce an age out mechanism that requires an answer to be maintained semi regularly? Do they already have this today?

raesene9 8y ago

They can be but AFAIK edits don't garner the editor points, so from a gamification perspective, people might be less inclined to edit than to put a new answer with the updated information.

jrochkind1 8y ago

I get outdated answers a lot of the time I'm searching. And that's when I can _recognize_ outdated answers. A lot of others posting here say the same. I guess it's possible we're an unrepresentative minority, and it doesn't effect many users. Otherwise, how is it "not a big problem"? Is it the sort of thing where "in theory" it's not a big problem, even though in actuality it significantly effects the usefulness of the site to many people?

dagw 8y ago

That's not a big problem. As someone who primarily interacts with SO via search engine results, it's one of the biggest problems with SO. The number of top voted/accepted answers that are 'wrong' in one way or another keeps going up and thus the chance of me finding the 'right' answer on SO keeps going down.