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TL;DR: Don't cast EOL close votes on old questions if the release in question was supported at the time of posting.

Yes, this is a blatant dupe. Actually, it's also a dupe of this. But... it seems a reminder is warranted regardless.

This has came up at least twice in the last few days in Raiders of the Lost Downboat, and... I think it's time to address it here.

A question was posted about some version of Ubuntu, and it was not EOL when the question was posted. Then, several users go and cast close votes for it being EOL now. This isn't really in line with our guidence. We don't go mass-closing old questions purely because they are about releases that have gone EOL since posting.

If the release of Ubuntu was supported at the time of posting, then it's still on-topic. If it's off-topic for other reasons, that's fine, but that's also not the problem here.

So when casting close votes (or flagging to close) questions as EOL, please remember to check the date the question was posted to see if it was a supported release then.

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  • 2
    At the same time, if such a question was closed, there's no point to reopening it now.
    – muru
    Commented Aug 30, 2023 at 23:42
  • If a question is getting closed, 1.) does it disappear for people without an AU account? 2.) will it disappear from the web search results? (Asked more effectively: what are the consequences of a question getting closed?)
    – Levente
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 0:10
  • Also: what is the explicit benefit of keeping those questions open?
    – Levente
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 0:14
  • 1
    @Levente a closed question might get deleted after a while if it has zero or negative score and no upvoted or accepted answers... basically if no one felt anything in it was useful. But they remain visible and accessible until deletion. I don't think there's a benefit to keeping these open, but if people start mass-closing questions just because the version went EOL, our already-busy review queues would be absolutely flooded.
    – muru
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 6:07
  • 3
    I agree with that. It clutters the queue with unnecessary posts. However, I would like to challenge these types of questions: i.sstatic.net/eyQyk.png. Once a post is picked by the community user to be bumped, it will keep bumping to no end. If the question is now EOL, no one will answer it even though it wasn't EOL back then. This is one example: askubuntu.com/posts/859721/revisions
    – Dan
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 8:05
  • 3
    @Dan this community bot bumping (of versions like 14.4) is the bane of this site, and regardless of how many times it comes up (ha!), nothing is done in this regard (I guess it would need to be a feature-request for SE, as accommodating it would probably need altering the application+db schema).
    – Levente
    Commented Aug 31, 2023 at 18:21
  • 1
    Does this answer your question? A note on flagging end of life questions
    – karel
    Commented Sep 1, 2023 at 9:58
  • 1
    @karel Well, yes. I am aware of the dupe, but this is mainly to serve as a reminder, despite that it is a duplicate.
    – cocomac
    Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 3:31

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