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well you can track your down-votes, but is it fair to down-vote something that was right in 2007, but not right in 2020 anymore? Maybe a mechanism to lock old

well you can track your down-votes, but is it fair to down-vote something that was right in 2007, but not right in 2020 anymore? Maybe a mechanism to lock old right answers, and open the question again, I'm not sure. That's probably an issue that the Stackoverflow team didn't think about back in the days..

lucb1e 6y ago
One existing mechanism to attract new answers is opening a bounty. I'm not a big fan of the system, but just adding this to the discussion because I think it's the closest thing stackexchange has to an official way to re-open a question for answering. One of the reasons you can select for the bounty is something along the lines of "current answers are outdated".
the_af 6y ago
Why is it unfair? I think SO should care more about the quality of questions and answers than about the reputation score of individual contributors. This is a downside of gamification though: it becomes all about ego and earning points, which I don't think should be the goal of a site like SO. If keeping the quality of the content means some people must lose rep points, then so be it. If they have 14K rep they won't notice, anyway.
- detaro 6y ago
  A "this is outdated" flag thats independent of downvotes would achieve both goals.
  - the_af 6y ago
    Maybe. It should be coupled with a mechanism to encourage more up to date answers, if possible a link to a better answer if it exists. Also a way to encourage organic searches from finding more up to date answers. The flag should act so that it isn't ripe for abuse (e.g. people flagging out of spite, without evidence). Downvoting does have the side-effect of poking the original author into action, because gamification often means (regrettably) that people do care about rep points. edit: an argument against down/upvoting: I think there is a sizeable "bandwagon" effect. People upvote what already has upvotes, and downvote what already has downvotes. I can't prove it but I'm pretty sure this happens. If so, obsolete answers will never go away by downvoting alone.
- pelasaco 6y ago
  it is unfair, because the answer isn't necessarily wrong. It's just outdated. If somebody asks "How to do X in rails", and your answer isn't valid in Rails 6 anymore it's not necessarily wrong if it still works with Rails 2.3.8.

lucb1e 6y ago

One existing mechanism to attract new answers is opening a bounty. I'm not a big fan of the system, but just adding this to the discussion because I think it's the closest thing stackexchange has to an official way to re-open a question for answering. One of the reasons you can select for the bounty is something along the lines of "current answers are outdated".

the_af 6y ago

Why is it unfair? I think SO should care more about the quality of questions and answers than about the reputation score of individual contributors. This is a downside of gamification though: it becomes all about ego and earning points, which I don't think should be the goal of a site like SO. If keeping the quality of the content means some people must lose rep points, then so be it. If they have 14K rep they won't notice, anyway.

detaro 6y ago
A "this is outdated" flag thats independent of downvotes would achieve both goals.
- the_af 6y ago
  Maybe. It should be coupled with a mechanism to encourage more up to date answers, if possible a link to a better answer if it exists. Also a way to encourage organic searches from finding more up to date answers. The flag should act so that it isn't ripe for abuse (e.g. people flagging out of spite, without evidence). Downvoting does have the side-effect of poking the original author into action, because gamification often means (regrettably) that people do care about rep points. edit: an argument against down/upvoting: I think there is a sizeable "bandwagon" effect. People upvote what already has upvotes, and downvote what already has downvotes. I can't prove it but I'm pretty sure this happens. If so, obsolete answers will never go away by downvoting alone.
pelasaco 6y ago
it is unfair, because the answer isn't necessarily wrong. It's just outdated. If somebody asks "How to do X in rails", and your answer isn't valid in Rails 6 anymore it's not necessarily wrong if it still works with Rails 2.3.8.