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I've been working with this question for a while. Ultimately, it's best for the community if the question is deleted. I've submitted fixes to the question, and all of the answers (including flags to close the redudant answers). All of which have been rejected. Further, while the question doesn't make sense in it's current form, and the answers are outdated, an op attached a bounty to the question. To make matters even worse for the community, the question is protected.

I ventured to fix a problem and Jorge Castro certainly exaccerbated it.

On the question itself.

The question is simply badly worded. The question asks for the best way to install the latest version of Chromium. Latest here can mean a few things,

  1. It could mean the only version in the distro's repository. In this use-case latest is moot because dpkg only supports a single version of a package (unlike rpm).
  2. It could mean the latest version released by the Chromium team in stable form.
  3. It could mean the nightly build or the most bleeding edge version.

Dare I say, 99.9% of people mean the second form. Including the person who answered this question wrongly and had the answer chosen,

Chromium is currently not built for the chromium-daily PPA, which makes using it a bit of a security issue. Unless you can find a better PPA that stays up to date, I'd recommend you [ignore what you want and do this instead].

This sort of answer should have been deleted. It's simply not an x-y problem, and it doesn't address the question. There are a lot of good reasons to want the latest version of Chromium, and not getting the latest version is not a solution.

On the answers to the question.

All of the answers are wrong, but moreover -- they're potentially harmful. They all advocate you add a PPA to your system that is obscenely outdated. Ideally, nothing happens which is just confusing -- that's the best you can hope for.

If you want to know more about why these questions are outdated, read this question.

On the question being protected.

There are a lot of good reasons to protect an answer, but in this case -- there isn't one. This question has 40,000 views and voices are being squelched because the question is protected. If you're going to attach a bounty to a question with 40,000 views that already has a chosen-answer, perhaps we should acknowledge that further additions to the question and answer won't be limited to mere "thanks!", "me too!", or spam.

This question is protected to prevent "thanks!", "me too!", or spam answers by new users. To answer it, you must have earned at least 10 reputation on this site.

I don't think submissions are likely to be limited to that when you throw a 250 rep bounty in the direction of the question.

Solution

This kind of question is just better closed:

  1. It's ambiguously proposed.
  2. It's contributions to discourse are outdated -- none of the answers are relevant.
  3. It's marked as chosen an answer which isn't related to the question.

I've simply taken the initiative to replace the need for it fixing all of the above problems.

5
  • I don't understand why you've posted a new question instead of fixing the old one? Jul 7, 2013 at 20:13
  • I tried, all of my edits were rejected. I edited every answer, and the question itself. And ultimately the chosen-answer is not a solution, and that's bothersome and deceptive. It's not even an attempt at a solution. It's not even a workaround towards the goal. It's just trash. Jul 7, 2013 at 20:15
  • 3
    You're right it is trash, that's why I've flagged them for removal. Jul 7, 2013 at 20:17
  • I hope @JorgeCastro 's bounty sees a meaningful solution that we can just god-hammer in to place and lock. Jul 7, 2013 at 20:57
  • 5
    There's so many things plain wrong with this meta Q ...
    – user98085
    Jul 7, 2013 at 21:55

3 Answers 3

9

I rejected your edits because you added a banner that said something to the effect of "This PPA is out of date and should not be used."

We don't want out of date garbage on the site, so instead I rejected your edits explaining that I had flagged these answers for complete removal itself. Since we don't abandon questions here, I repurposed the original question to be useful for users.

I don't see how adding a bounty to it to get up to date answers exaccerbated the problem.

4
  • Because the question is still badly worded for the answer that was chosen. So even if you get rid of the PPA-attempts (which are only bad because of the date), the question should still be retitled to a mere "How do I install Chromium using the web interface?" That's obviously what the author was looking for. Jul 7, 2013 at 20:19
  • 2
    @EvanCarroll Then edit it good grief.
    – Seth
    Jul 7, 2013 at 20:59
  • It's unsalvageable everything is wrong with it. And, further -- I already tried to edit it @Seth the edits were rejeceted -- read the question. Jul 7, 2013 at 22:30
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    @EvanCarroll No you didn't. You tried to edit the answers. The question is completely salvageable.
    – Seth
    Jul 7, 2013 at 22:40
5

The question is relevant and specific and is thus valid. The current answers are not sufficient and thus Jorge's bounty is at place.

I can understand your frustration, but you should just downvote and comment insufficient or wrong answers and not start some edit war.

3

Just reworking the questions and adding comments to the answers indicating that some info is out of date can go a long way in keeping answer seekers informed. Occasionally, authors will happily update their answer information as well( a crazy concept I know ;-/).

I would have gladly updated mine before it had been deleted. Whether my new answer is the correct/better/newer answer, I don't know yet.

I saw your edit to my answer, this morning, and would have rejected it as well. I think you could have gone about this in a more constructive manner than adding here be Dragons warnings at the top of answers, getting your edits rejects and winding up here.

Or better yet, provide a more timely answer yourself.

Sheesh. Talk about creating tempest in a teapot. ;-)

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