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The current highest-voted answer in Scroll shell output with mouse in tmux is outdated and no longer works. The same is true of the 2nd and 3rd answers. For the current version of the software, the 4th answer (at the time of writing) is the most applicable.

How should this situation be handled? Should I edit the info from the 4th answer into the 1st answer (which is correct and useful for older versions), edit in a note in the answer to point users to the (currently) correct answer, or leave the situation as-is, with only a comment pointing users of the current version to the applicable answer.

Editing the currently highest-rated answer is what I thought to do at first, but the latter two methods allow the user who wrote the currently 4th answer to gain their deserved rep as their answer gradually rises to the top, but having just a comment to point readers in the right direction may be overlooked (I nearly missed it myself).

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  • If a new answer is valid, adds significant new information, and is a high-quality relative answer it will get upvotes
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 11, 2016 at 5:46
  • 2
    The question is 5½ years old, and the 4th highest answer is 100 votes behind the highest one. What's the expectation of the time before the 4th one catches up to the top one?
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Commented Jun 15, 2016 at 4:01
  • We could get OP to mark the valid answer as accepted, but he is inactive for a long time.
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 14:34
  • @Mindwin which is often an issue with these types of scenarios, I've found
    – SnoringFrog
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 15:08
  • @Ramhound In an ideal world, yes. But very often people "follow the herd" and upvote what is already upvoted. And the gap is too wide
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 17:15
  • @Mindwin Sounds like the new answer isn't all that great of it doesn't recieve up votes
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 21:24

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Comment on the now outdated answers and upvote those that are correct.

If the outdated answers get updated, then upvote them then. They need to use their own words. It feels like you'd be punishing someone for being right by editing their answer into the other answers.

That way everyone gets a good chance at rep, the person who is correct now as well as the ones who were correct and can still be in future.

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  • Downvote the outdated answer as it is not helpful?
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 14:33
  • @Mindwin that would be up to you. Personally I prefer to only downvote outright wrong answers, as the answer is at least right for some permutations of older software it might be useful for people maintaining old machines. Depends how wrong you think the answer is.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 14:58
  • I think there is another way. Questions on superuser can be directed to a specific version of a software, right?
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 17:16
  • @Mindwin they can, yes, but you cannot go changing old questions to suit particular versions and make half their answers obsolete and we cannot manually split a question into versions. Neither can you ask a very specific question saying "only this version released on 22nd June 2016" as it may be forever unanswered as too narrow as no one uses that version or the feature changed the next day. You can't have it both ways and you have it neither way. This doesn't happen that often and generally the best way is to be pragmatic about it.
    – Mokubai Mod
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 18:16
  • Changing old questions/answers is bad. But it is a site-specific issue that software versions come and go and all material linked to them will decay. Would a question of an issue on v6.0.1 that cannot be solved with any solution addressing v5.6.9 and before be closed as duplicate or "too narrow"?
    – Mindwin Remember Monica
    Commented Jun 23, 2016 at 19:23
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You could set a flag on the answer to indicate whether or not it is valid. The community would have to be responsible for setting these flags (eg the OP). A reason should be given and somebody else should be alerted to review the decision.

When an answer is flagged not valid with the reason given as it is obsolete then the upvotes should be expired - they could still count for reputation but not for raising the answer.

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