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I've bumped into a question that is 2 years old, has 0 score and is off-topic (question about 9.10 asked 1 year after EOL).

I flagged it off-topic by instinct, but it is a good practice to do this?

It's extra work for someone to review, but I guess it helps to keep the site clean. Or am I just too pedantic here?

Edit: I'm rather new on this site, but all of my flags were found helpful so far. I'd like to keep it this way, hence the question.

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  • If it hadn't been answered then it is entirely appropriate to flag it, however this question seems to have a good answer, so no real point in closing it. We might be able to merge it like Jorge suggested though.
    – Seth Mod
    Commented Jun 10, 2014 at 1:47

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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Me personally, if it's an old question with low views I tend to skip it in the review queue so I can save my reviews for something more important. To see if it's useful for people I check google to see how the question ranks. This question is answered though, generally speaking I try to flag old questions that are unanswered and languishing instead of ones that probably might be useful to someone.

I searched google for how to play mkv files and this question was the top result:

So likely these two can be merged and improved to be more future proof, that would help "rescue" old questions. It's actually kind of disconcerting that that question is really a bug-report -- we apparently do not have a question and answer for how to play mkv files at all!

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For the purpose of review, I will actually skip it since I am not familiar with that version. In any case, I prefer to judge the question by its quality, and version number or age has little to do with it. It is not my purpose/motivation to close/flag old questions by checking off a list.

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It is worthwhile flagging a question as old, particularly for users who are relatively new and don't have any other guide to the likely usefulness (or possible risks) in old advice.

A flag when questions are related to old software might help, perhaps a link to a warning that packages referred to are no longer available in the standard repositories.

There is value in supporting users with old software by at least indicating that a solution has been found. They might then have to go the long way round to solve their problem, but that is better than a dead end.

Pogo.

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    There is no "old" flag in SE, and my question was about raising flags in general on questions that have been untouched for years.
    – kraxor
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 8:36
  • Thanks for the extra info, @kraxor. I'm even newer than you. :-) I take it from your answer that getting an "old" flag into SE would be harder than answering the question. But this question appears fairly often in different guises, and my response is to tackle it directly. OT is an indication, but not quite what you would want to say. Since an "old" flag does not exist, perhaps an agreed protocol, maybe an answer containing a link to a page with what would be standard responses, including the warning that a fuller answer is unlikely given the question's age and the small number of users.
    – Pogo
    Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 8:57
  • Please don't sign your posts. More information here.
    – EKons
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 9:58
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I always flag. This would be a case of "off-topic", because it asks for help on a version that was already in EOL at the time it was asked.

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  • Your edit now makes your answer a reasonable one.
    – edwinksl
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 13:38
  • @edwinksl If you agree with my answer, you can always upvote. If you can't remove your downvote, I'll edit my post.
    – EKons
    Commented Sep 26, 2016 at 13:40

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