"Who cares if it's an old question?" - Agree completely. Also, people often upvote and even sometimes accept answers in a hurry without always trying them out themselves (and when they do, might never return to change their vote). People think it sounds good and will probably work, they upvote. Someone comes along years later who's still dealing with old systems and actually implements the 'solution' and it fails. What then? Why should they not be allowed to leave appropriate feedback on the answer?

@BiTinerary: Don't forget to use @! "if a post is several years old should it be continually subjected to voting" - If you pose this question to people, I bet they'll all agree that downvotes on old answers suck but will be only too happy to continue being upvoted for old answers. So it's not about freezing voting completely. Clearly the demand is only to stop downvoting and not upvoting, and I don't agree with this.

If something has to be done (and I'm not sure it's such a huge problem right now), I'm not opposed to option 1. Option 3 would results in such notices being pasted across the site, including posts where all answers might end up with these warnings. Unless it's somehow done discreetly I think it'll just look way too ugly, plus I don't believe it'll accomplish anything useful. It's common sense (or should be) that older answers relevant to older tech should not be followed blindly on modern systems. So all in all only option 1 would get my vote. BTW, wouldn't this make more sense on meta.SE?

@BiTinerary: I wasn't talking about freezing Qs but As (which the OP was also focused on), but why shouldn't the same rule apply to Qs as well? Just because something (Q or A) flew under the radar and escaped scrutiny "within a reasonable time period" (for whatever definition of "reasonable"), does that mean it automatically deserves protection against downvotes forever? Note: I'm not advocating that older answers that're no longer relevant should be downvoted. That's indeed silly. As for defending Ramhound, are you addressing that towards me? No part of my comment was attacking him.

Just because a bad answer somehow escaped scrutiny (irrespective of whether it already has downvotes or not) there's no reason to automatically protect it after a few years. I don't think option 2 is a good idea.

@slhck: Certainly fooled me (and possibly others too). Could have been made more clear - looks an awful lot like it was posted in the wrong place. I have retracted my close vote based on your clarification.

It certainly doesn't fit on Meta. :o

Thanks slhck, we all try to do our bit to help you guys out. Also that's good news @DanielBeck. I fully support this and upvoted the request. Hopefully it's implemented soon.

@slhck: Thanks for the explanation, that was indeed a mod restriction I was unaware of since it was the first time I found myself at the wrong end of it.

Yes, I indicated clearly above that it doesn't matter (which you might not believe since I posted this question). It wasn't a complaint and I didn't want to point fingers at or draw attention to the mod in question, so please don't feel the need to apologise. Your response has made it clear there are moderator restrictions on multiple flag handling which I was completely unaware of, so that explains perfectly the flag message. Not ideal, but understandable. (I see no technical reason for the restriction BTW other than that this isn't a feature considered worth implementing by the SE devs.)

@slhck: That's a new one. You mean if there are two flags, one correct and the other incorrect, both get rejected?

@Oliver: I didn't want to direct attention to the specific post/mod since I too thought that was what it might have been, and the mod who handled it would know anyway what I was referring to (if it hadn't slipped his mind).

Nicely done, although I thought some prior discussion was warranted else I'd simply have done it myself.

@user99572isfine: I guess I could have included it there but thought a discussion might be in order, which is difficult in such a catch-all thread.