How should we handle "obsolete" answers to old questions (e.g. pre-Disney canon Star Wars questions)?

Question

There is a Star Wars question Was the thermal exhaust port on the Death Star really a design flaw?, which was written in 2011. The top few answers, aside from a joke answer that doesn't actually answer the question as intended, all involve Legends continuity sources, which makes sense given that at the time Disney canon hadn't happened yet, so that was canon.

But with the recent release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, there is now a new Disney canon answer that directly contradicts the Legends answers. What should we do about this given that the answers were valid at the time of the question being asked and the definition of canon has changed?

Answer 1

The best way to deal with the arrival of new canon information is to post new answers that offer answers from the new canon and allow those answers to (eventually) rise up above the older answers.

Over time the newer (and arguably righter) answer will gain more upvotes and hopefully surpass the older (obsolete) answer. Unfortunately, in the meantime you have to suffer the indignity of knowing that a wrong answer is sat above yours.

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You might also want to give the OP a prod to see if they'll reconsider an acceptance of an older answer in favour of your new and shiny one.

Answer 2

Personally I think the least disruptive option is to encourage existing answerers to update their answers via comments. This will let people update their existing answers, and should be unambiguous. Otherwise we can end up with highly voted contradictory answers, or correct but buried answers because they haven't had a chance to bubble up to the top yet.

Duping a bunch of existing questions feels really abusive like Valorum mentioned in a comment. Similarly, editing a bunch of answers just to say the answers are wrong feels really abusive as well. I know we wouldn't stand for that kind of behavior for a new answer so I don't understand why we'd allow it on an old answer. Down-voting answers isn't always an option either if the answer wasn't edited since your last up-vote, and fixing an answer's grammar just so you can down-vote the answer IMO is a slimy move.

Another option I haven't seen mentioned is for someone to create a Meta question where questions with only obsolete answers that aren't being updated are highlighted. I don't really think this is a great idea because people good enough to put Q/A on that list are good enough to add a new correct answer, and finding the questions would be a good deal of the work. What I do like about this option is it would serve as an additional spotlight for people who have already answered the question to update their answers.

Answer 3

There's really no good way to handle this.

• The way that's arguably most in-line with the SE design philosophy is to downvote wrong answers (even answers that are wrong through no fault of the answerer) and upvote correct answers.

  The problems with this are:

  1. New answers to old questions typically, though with exceptions, get less attention; it's much harder for a new question to float to the top of the page. This leaves us in the situation where the "right" answer and the "best" answer (according to community votes) aren't necessarily the same, making the whole site a more complicated thing to use and rather undermining its purpose
  2. We can't do anything about the acceptance mark. In some cases this isn't a problem, because some of our long-time users are still active and open to moving the tick to the better answer. But in other cases (such as the one you linked to), we wouldn't expect a response

• The other way would be to intentionally post duplicate questions, answer them with the new canon answers, and then close the older questions as dupes of the newer.

  This has the advantage of more effectively promoting the new content, but isn't without problems; in addition to the ones I've railed about before:

  1. Some people object to the practice of closing old questions as dupes of newer questions. If we were to do this en masse, I expect a lot of arguments in meta
  2. It sets an uncomfortable precedent that may get out of hand; this is admittedly a slippery slope argument, but then building on precedent is most of what Meta is about

• The final way would be to edit the existing answers to say something like "As of the Great Disneyfication, this answer is no longer correct. See [link to correct answer] for the correct answer."

  This is a nice middle-ground, but will result in a lot of edit spam, and probably some backlash from people who object to their answers being devalued

Personally

My philosophical inclination is to go with the first option I posted; I've whinged mightily against the second option previously on Meta, and I stand by those arguments.

However, in this specific case, of Star Wars Disney canon versus Legends, I think it would be more effective to ask and answer new questions, and close the older ones. My biggest reason for saying this is in response to a point I made in my Cursed Child meta answer:

It stratifies the canon in a way I'm not comfortable with (in most cases). There's little intuitive reason why a question like "Why is X a thing in Harry Potter" and "Why is X a thing in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" should have different answers

After the canon reorganization, there really is a stratification of the canon, imposed by Disney. So much of the basis for our older answers is now out the window that I think it will be simpler and more effective to "pull a Disney" and declare many of our old Star Wars questions to be non-canon.

I'm not opposed to any of my other suggestions being implemented, and I feel really icky about even suggesting this one, but I think it will ultimately be more effective in helping us fulfil our purpose of being a useful repository of facts.

Answer 4

A feasible option, would be to add the ability, (after a certain prestige), to flag answers or questions as obsolete. Or a similar process to closing could be used. If we began intentionally posting duplicate questions, many people would not realize the purpose, and they would be flagged as duplicates, essentially achieving nothing. If new answers are submitted, many would sit unnoticed, especially if the new canon answer wasn't as exciting as the old canon answer.