Sometimes we have outdated answers

From my experience, it's not sometimes. I'd say more than half of the answers seem outdated and don't work with 3.1. For a software with such major changes between versions it is not surprising posts are outdated relatively quickly. Without a mandatory version tagging procedure Stack Exchange format is not effective to manage such obsolescence.

Time is wasted reading outdated posts

For someone following a link in a search engine, unmarked outdated posts are a waste of time, instead of helping they can even add to the problem.

E.g. searching how to set the camera field of view sends me to How to set camera horizontal and vertical FOV, a question seen a mean 50 times a month. However the solution is irrelevant for recent versions where the field of view cannot be set, only the sensor size.

(Note the number of upvotes is not helpful to assess the current value of a post, a post may have been upvoted a long time ago, but never in the recent period. Downvotes are a good indication though, as it's not very common to see a poor answer suddenly becoming a useful one.)

Mitigation

Outdated answers should be either updated or marked outdated and if possible deleted.

• Marking posts as outdated is an effective solution to prevent wasting time reading useless posts, but is not an incentive to increase posts value.

• To increase posts value outdated posts could be deleted. Deleting an answer is indeed a problem from a reputation standpoint, but reputation is an indication of how much someone else can be confident in the author's content value, hence it should be decreased for authors concentrating outdated content. Regularly updating posts according to Blender changes should be the normal way to prevent reputation decreasing with time.

The simplest solution would be to downvote outdated posts, but as we know trying to help this way costs reputation to the helper, and possibly triggers some negative assessment of the user by SE AI.

Possible solution at moderator/user level

When a user detects an outdated post (e.g. not valid or not effective for any version released in the last 18 months), it should exists a mechanism in the stack rules to inform the author about the outdated content and the need to update it. I wonder if it can be done by flagging the post "to moderator attention". In case no update is provided, or the question or answer is not relevant any more, it should be edited to mention its outdated status on the first line.

Stack Exchange solution

Indeed the actual solution is in the hands of SE: Put in place a vote based on versions instead of a vote with permanent validity. Alternatively gives the vote a time limit, when it times out delete it, this way posts that once had a high ranking will just die if not regularly upvoted. I'm pretty sure SE, including SO, cannot remain attractive with time without such mechanism as the number of outdated posts is becoming a problem by itself (it's not specific to SE/SO).

Sometimes we have outdated answers

From my experience, it's not sometimes. I'd say more than half of the answers seem outdated and don't work with 3.1. For a software with such major changes between versions it is not surprising posts are outdated relatively quickly. Without a mandatory version tagging procedure Stack Exchange format is not effective to manage such obsolescence.

Time is wasted reading outdated posts

For someone following a link in a search engine, unmarked outdated posts are a waste of time, instead of helping they can even add to the problem.

(Note the number of upvotes is not helpful to assess the current value of a post, a post may have been upvoted a long time ago, but never in the recent period. Downvotes are a good indication though, as it's not very common to see a poor answer suddenly becoming a useful one.)

Mitigation

Outdated answers should be either updated or marked outdated and if possible deleted.

• Marking posts as outdated is an effective solution to prevent wasting time reading useless posts, but is not an incentive to increase posts value.

• To increase posts value outdated posts could be deleted. Deleting an answer is indeed a problem from a reputation standpoint, but reputation is an indication of how much someone else can be confident in the author's content value, hence it should be decreased for authors concentrating outdated content. Regularly updating posts according to Blender changes should be the normal way to prevent reputation decreasing with time.

The simplest solution would be to downvote outdated posts, but as we know trying to help this way costs reputation to the helper, and possibly triggers some negative assessment of the user by SE AI.

Possible solution at moderator/user level

When a user detects an outdated post (e.g. not valid or not effective for any version released in the last 18 months), it should exists a mechanism in the stack rules to inform the author about the outdated content and the need to update it. I wonder if it can be done by flagging the post "to moderator attention". In case no update is provided, or the question or answer is not relevant any more, it should be edited to mention its outdated status on the first line.

Stack Exchange solution

Indeed the actual solution is in the hands of SE: Put in place a vote based on versions instead of a vote with permanent validity. Alternatively gives the vote a time limit, when it times out delete it, this way posts that once had a high ranking will just die if not regularly upvoted. I'm pretty sure SE, including SO, cannot remain attractive with time without such mechanism as the number of outdated posts is becoming a problem by itself (it's not specific to SE/SO).

Sometimes we have outdated answers

From my experience, it's not sometimes. I'd say more than half of the answers seem outdated and don't work with 3.1. For a software with such major changes between versions it is not surprising posts are outdated relatively quickly. Without a mandatory version tagging procedure Stack Exchange format is not effective to manage such obsolescence.

Time is wasted reading outdated posts

For someone following a link in a search engine, unmarked outdated posts are a waste of time, instead of helping they can even add to the problem.

(Note the number of upvotes is not helpful to assess the current value of a post, a post may have been upvoted a long time ago, but never in the recent period. Downvotes are a good indication though, as it's not very common to see a poor answer suddenly becoming a useful one.)

Mitigation

Outdated answers should be either updated or marked outdated and if possible deleted.

• Marking posts as outdated is an effective solution to prevent wasting time reading useless posts, but is not an incentive to increase posts value.

• To increase posts value outdated posts could be deleted. Deleting an answer is indeed a problem from a reputation standpoint, but reputation is an indication of how much someone else can be confident in the author's content value, hence it should be decreased for authors concentrating outdated content. Regularly updating posts according to Blender changes should be the normal way to prevent reputation decreasing with time.

The simplest solution would be to downvote outdated posts, but as we know trying to help this way costs reputation to the helper, and possibly triggers some negative assessment of the user by SE AI.

Possible solution at moderator/user level

When a user detects an outdated post (e.g. not valid or not effective for any version released in the last 18 months), it should exists a mechanism in the stack rules to inform the author about the outdated content and the need to update it. I wonder if it can be done by flagging the post "to moderator attention". In case no update is provided, or the question or answer is not relevant any more, it should be edited to mention its outdated status on the first line.

Stack Exchange solution

Indeed the actual solution is in the hands of SE: Put in place a vote based on versions instead of a vote with permanent validity. Alternatively gives the vote a time limit, when it times out delete it, this way posts that once had a high ranking will just die if not regularly upvoted. I'm pretty sure SE, including SO, cannot remain attractive with time without such mechanism as the number of outdated posts is becoming a problem by itself (it's not specific to SE/SO).

Sometimes we have outdated answers

From my experience, it's not sometimes. I'd say more than half of the answers seem outdated and don't work with 3.1. For a software with such major changes between versions it is not surprising posts are outdated relatively quickly. Without a mandatory version tagging procedure Stack Exchange format is not effective to manage such obsolescence.

Time is wasted reading outdated posts

For someone following a link in a search engine, unmarked outdated posts are a waste of time, instead of helping they can even add to the problem.

E.g. searching how to set the camera field of view sends me to How to set camera horizontal and vertical FOV, a question seen a mean 50 times a month. However the solution is irrelevant for recent versions where the field of view cannot be set, only the sensor size.

(Note the number of upvotes is not helpful to assess the current value of a post, a post may have been upvoted a long time ago, but never in the recent period. Downvotes are a good indication though, as it's not very common to see a poor answer suddenly becoming a useful one.)

Mitigation

Outdated answers should be either updated or marked outdated and if possible deleted.

• Marking posts as outdated is an effective solution to prevent wasting time reading useless posts, but is not an incentive to increase posts value.

• To increase posts value outdated posts could be deleted. Deleting an answer is indeed a problem from a reputation standpoint, but reputation is an indication of how much someone else can be confident in the author's content value, hence it should be decreased for authors concentrating outdated content. Regularly updating posts according to Blender changes should be the normal way to prevent reputation decreasing with time.

The simplest solution would be to downvote outdated posts, but as we know trying to help this way costs reputation to the helper, and possibly triggers some negative assessment of the user by SE AI.

Possible solution at moderator/user level

When a user detects an outdated post (e.g. not valid or not effective for any version released in the last 18 months), it should exists a mechanism in the stack rules to inform the author about the outdated content and the need to update it. I wonder if it can be done by flagging the post "to moderator attention". In case no update is provided, or the question or answer is not relevant any more, it should be edited to mention its outdated status on the first line.

Stack Exchange solution

Indeed the actual solution is in the hands of SE: Put in place a vote based on versions instead of a vote with permanent validity. Alternatively gives the vote a time limit, when it times out delete it, this way posts that once had a high ranking will just die if not regularly upvoted. I'm pretty sure SE, including SO, cannot remain attractive with time without such mechanism as the number of outdated posts is becoming a problem by itself (it's not specific to SE/SO).