Searching for previous possible answers to my questions I am frustrated by reams of material referring to earlier iterations of Ubuntu. If the solutions do not change, fine - but I suspect they might. I understand older versions are likely to have more answers! I can't see any control for ordering them more appropriately for me :-(
how can I change the order of replies to "most recent first" or (even better) "most recent version"?
1 Answer
The problem with suspicions is that it’s very hard to prove a negative.
Searching by version would be an interesting feature, but would also require a remarkable amount of consistency and historical knowledge from people answering the questions to ensure applicable versions are appropriately identified (and updated a every six months).
As you’ve undoubtedly found, there are three ways to filter answers:
| Option | Definition |
|---|---|
| Active | Show answers that have recently been posted, edited, or commented on from newest activity to oldest |
| Oldest | Show answers in a FIFO order |
| Votes | Show an accepted answer first, then all other answers sorted by votes descending |
Generally speaking, Votes has been the most helpful for colleagues and acquaintances who seem to always have a browser tab dedicated to an SE site. If the accepted answer doesn’t work (anymore), the answer with the highest votes beneath it will sometimes be the solution we seek.
Of course you probably already know this.
Depending on your level of SQL-fu, one possibility would be to download a copy of the Stack Overflow database and test some filtering algorithms that promote current or modern solutions in a manner that works for you. Stack Overflow is not AskUbuntu — and the criteria will be a bit different — but, if you can design a more effective mechanism to raise better answers to the top of the list (and share it with the Stack Exchange development team), you’ll likely have a million people from across the planet thanking you for saving them a lot of time and effort 👍🏻
