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There is a question How to hide users from the GDM login screen? which is 5 years old, subsequently most voted and accepted answers don't work any more.
I needed to hide a user from appearing on login screen and I found this question, I started implementing answers that are voted most and gave up after implementing 2 answers (and I believe so will most internet searchers will).
The answer that works is below with very few votes. I believe this answer should be at the top because most Linux users tend to be updated with software.

So my question how to make it easy for users to find working and less voted answers easily? Should we start a new similar question that specifies newer version and answer that works perfectly? OR do you have any idea, please discuss here.

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  • The best I could do about it +1 it
    – Alex Jones
    Feb 3, 2016 at 14:42
  • 2
    Edit the answer, making clear it works on the current version of Ubuntu in a header. Feb 3, 2016 at 14:44
  • @JacobVlijm I did, I added a sentence in bold saying "this answer works on newer version of gdm"
    – Alex Jones
    Feb 3, 2016 at 14:46
  • Grant a bounty to it.
    – muru
    Feb 3, 2016 at 14:47
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    And if you can, find which version of Ubuntu it works for. "Newer version of GDM" will be just as useless as the other posts in a few years.
    – muru
    Feb 3, 2016 at 14:48
  • @JacobVlijm finding from which version the new answer works is real challenge for me :-p
    – Alex Jones
    Feb 3, 2016 at 14:54
  • 2
    You could at least mention your current version, which is a proven match :) Feb 3, 2016 at 14:55
  • 4
    Read this meta.stackexchange.com/q/261817/213575
    – Braiam
    Feb 3, 2016 at 22:06

2 Answers 2

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Knowing that I also have quite a bunch of very old answers that dwell somewhere on this site let me suggest one thing we should always do in such a case:

Comment on the answer and tell us what was wrong.

Whenever a user is still active here they may be more than happy to get poked and may eventually adapt their answer to the different requirements of newer releases. At least they may make an edit to link to a better answer if that existed. I did so several times before.

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  • 2
    Good one! I am not sure it would work in all cases or even many of them, since many answers (good ones as well) were posted by people who are not too active any more. Feb 3, 2016 at 17:40
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    @JacobVlijm in case they abandoned their post it may be helpful if we make an edit with a notice similar to "If you look for a solution for Ubuntu 14.04 or later see [link]".
    – Takkat
    Feb 3, 2016 at 20:07
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  1. Is the question still valid?

    If no, flag/vote to close question.

    Note, there are few situations where an old question would be no longer valid. Even in most cases when people say "I'm using 13.04, and..." the problem is still likely to exist in newer versions of Ubuntu.

  2. Do you have a better answer?

    Posting a better answer is the best possible course of action, if of course you have one. The new answer will bump the question and if correct, may even get upvotes.

  3. Do the answers still work on older, but still supported, versions of software?

    If yes, no course of action is needed - the answers are still valid, though you may like to add a clarifying comment saying something like "This no longer works in recent versions". Commenting like this is likely to save other people some time, and may even get the attention of the person who originally wrote the answer.

    If no, downvote the answer if you like.

    There is probably no need to flag/vote to close the answer, if the only reason it's unsuitable is that it no longer solves the problem. But if any of the flag reasons do apply, then you could flag it.

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  • old questions should not be closed because they are old
    – Tim
    Feb 16, 2016 at 16:43
  • @Tim I fully agree, which is why I said they should be closed only if they are invalid, and that there are few situations where a question would become invalid simply because it's old. Feb 17, 2016 at 23:32

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