The problem of high-voted question that do not reflect the situation today is a problem, but is it really a big one? If the question does not reflect the situation, does anybody searches for such problems? And couldn't such question not simply be closed with a new close reason »historic only«? Closing is not a vote statement.

The problem of high-voted answers that do not reflect the situation today is a related problem and I think the bigger one. Some of them are really good answers with useful information about how things work and exciting code examples, but nevertheless not longer recommended or even can result in errors. So for one purpose of a question-answer platform: “giving solutions for problems”, such answers are not longer useful. But for another purpose of such a platform: “providing know-how to find solutions for problems”, they are still useful.

So for newcomers it would be useful not to be diverted by such answers that do not longer provide the solution or are not longer recommended to be used as a solution. If I find such an answer I usually write a comment in the hope, that the author of the answer finds a solution to improve the answers. But sometimes even the author is not able to do so. And sometimes removing such an answer indeed has been happened. Removing an answer does not mean, that the platform deletes it. It is just marked as removed and users with high enough score still can see them. So even removed answers are not lost. However, you cannot longer vote for them nor can you comment them nor can the average user see them. And you must read the answer and/or the comments to find out whether or it is still useful.

Maybe a second kind of removed answers could be useful: Not longer a answer to the question but still useful. We could also name them “closed answers”. The name does not really matter. Such answers should not be shown for newcomers by default but maybe even newcomers should be able to display them. And it would be useful to be able to comment such answers and vote for them.

However this would be a completely new platform feature. So currently a stock statement indeed could be a workaround.

But IMHO there is another problem: Who should decide whether or not an answer is still valid or not? Do we need to vote about? Or should everyone who has the privilege to edit answers be able to add the stock statement?

The problem of high-voted question that do not reflect the situation today is a problem, but is it really a big one? If the question does not reflect the situation, does anybody searches for such problems? And couldn't such question not simply be closed with a new close reason »historic only«? Closing is not a vote statement.

The problem of high-voted answers that do not reflect the situation today is a related problem and I think the bigger one. Some of them are really good answers with useful information about how things work and exciting code examples, but nevertheless not longer recommended or even can result in errors. So for one purpose of a question-answer platform: “giving solutions for problems”, such answers are not longer useful. But for another purpose of such a platform: “providing know-how to find solutions for problems”, they are still useful.

So for newcomers it would be useful not to be diverted by such answers that do not longer provide the solution or are not longer recommended to be used as a solution. If I find such an answer I usually write a comment in the hope, that the author of the answer finds a solution to improve the answers. But sometimes even the author is not able to do so. And sometimes removing such an answer indeed has been happened. Removing an answer does not mean, that the platform deletes it. It is just marked as removed and users with high enough score still can see them. So even removed answers are not lost. However, you cannot longer vote for them nor can you comment them nor can the average user see them. And you must read the answer and/or the comments to find out whether or it is still useful.

Maybe a second kind of removed answers could be useful: “Not longer an answer to the question but still useful.” We could also name them “closed answers”. The name does not really matter. Such answers should not be shown for newcomers by default but maybe even newcomers should be able to display them. And it would be useful to be able to comment such answers and vote for them.

However this would be a completely new platform feature. So currently a stock statement indeed could be a workaround.

But IMHO there is another problem: Who should decide whether or not an answer is still valid or not? Do we need to vote about? Or should everyone who has the privilege to edit answers be able to add the stock statement?