What's the Best Practice for Questions with obsolete versions?

Question

How does one request tag cleanup for Questions like: I'm stuck at Firefox 20.0?

I'm asking this because karel's answer is correct. Version 10.04 is way out of the supported life-cycle, and according to EOL Question Handling, in which I totally agree with Oli, what is the proper approach to ask forcefully that a user upgrade to a supported version without calling all poster's that are using EOL Software Total idiots. It really aggravates me that Linux users think that just because If it ain't broke, don't fix it doesn't mean you should give up software updates totally.

Also, since I cannot add one yet, I'd like to request a new tag /eol. I'm not trying to start a flaming discussion here, but if no one keeps the debate going, I have a strange feeling that AU will become nothing but a list of questions for EOL Software. I don't mind leaving the questions open, but as a watcher/editor/moderator I'd like the ability to retag a question EOL.

Answer 1

You don't have to be that forceful to get the point across. The facts are simple and stark. A 10.04 system hasn't received Firefox updates since March 2013 when 20.0 was released. That version has had 21 critical exploits discovered in it, most of them remote... In an application that's in constant contact with "untrusted code".

People always discuss what they'd do if they had a time machine. Lottery numbers, stock tips... I'd take a CVE database and a Linux laptop and have some real fun. Old software is an open door for hackers.

But seriously, all you need to do is point out the age and that we can't support their choice to stay on such an old system. Flag, move on and let nature take its course. Their question being closed should highlight that we mean business.

Answer 2

The reason we say, Update or else, is simply because Canonical no longer provides updates to anything not current or LTS labelled. So, most of our information comes from either wiki or self had experience. So if something breaks and your telling us its say Jacky Jantaloupe, its because you made a self made update which is really the same thing as getting spaghetti String code and being told to make it work in less than 3 days. Many of the PPAs and Repositories also by that point are non functional.